


'Til Forever Ends

by Scarimonious



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Gen, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-26
Updated: 2010-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 21:44:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarimonious/pseuds/Scarimonious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing weird ever happens to Fiona Peterson. She isn't psychic, was never part of a secret government agency, from another dimension, a cat, or a time-travelling robot. She's just a girl in a band and has been struggling to cope with the outbreak of the almost-apocalypse while on tour. She's fought drunk people, zombies, and the occasional vampire, but she's still just an ordinary person when compared to the people around her; her manager in particular, Linus, happens to be a god. So while it may not be surprising when a dead prom queen shows up one night to give Fee a cryptic message about Linus, it is a shock when she wakes up back in the office she thought she'd left far, far behind. And after that, there's the world where some of her closest friends are now vampires and she's about to turn into one. Or the world where she's a superhero. The unifying thing in all these worlds is that Linus isn't his usual self, and if he doesn't remember how to be a god, there's a good chance that the universe will crumble. Fiona has no idea how to save the universe (or save the guy who can save the universe), but she's going to have to figure it out if she ever wants to go home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Til Forever Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/originalbigbang/profile)[**originalbigbang**](http://community.livejournal.com/originalbigbang/) 2010\. See the [master post](http://community.livejournal.com/originalbigbang/15170.html) for author's notes and links to bonus material.

Considering that she was dead, Ashley looked pretty good. That included the bloodstain down the front of her dress from where she'd slit her throat. Fiona tilted her head to one side to really study the patterns and try to memorise the splatter so she could practice for Halloween. It had been a while since she'd done the whole zombie prom queen thing, but she felt that after battling the undead for real, she'd finally win that best costume contest this year.

"Would you quit staring at me?" Ashley settled her hands on her hips and lifted her chin – not too far, so the velvet choker covered most of the laceration, but it still gaped a little. Bloody froth bubbled on the edges and she wheezed a bit when she breathed.

"I'm sorry; it's just that you're dead." Fee felt dumb for pointing out the obvious, but this wasn't exactly her specialty. Weird shit happened to other people. "You're the girl that went batshit and killed her boyfriend in front of her best friend when I was in senior year. Ashley Wilson?"

"Watson."

"Close enough. Your best friend went to the loony bin for a while. Last I heard, she found religion and was working in a church somewhere." She shrugged and shoved her hands in her pockets so she wouldn't get the urge to reach out and pop this big bubble that quivered next to the antique cameo on Ashley's choker. "Way to end prom."

"That wasn't what I was going for, but thanks." Ashley broke into a dazzling smile, the one that would have won her the title of queen if she hadn't had the Kool Aid.

"You're…welcome?" This was starting to rank amongst one of the more bizarre conversations Fiona had been a part of over the years and she had no idea where to go from here. Would asking how Ashley managed to cut her throat in a reasonably straight line be too much? If not, was it more about wrist technique? Oh yeah, and why the fuck would she do something so crazy in the first place!? Suicide was not an informed choice. And that bubble by her cameo was impossible not to look at.

"So, I need to ask a favour of you," Ashley's smile dimmed as she swayed forward. "It's pretty important in the scheme of the universe."

"I'm not gonna kill myself." Fee didn't even have to think about that one. She slipped one hand out of her pocket and started to reach for that bubble. Maybe if her nail was long enough, that would pop the thing and she wouldn't get bloody goo on herself?

She got within a few inches of the bubble when Ashley grabbed her hand in a cold, strong grip. "Enough." A new voice hissed out through the dead girl's teeth. Or possibly through the hole in her neck. Fiona tried to tug her hand free, but it was no use. Ashley had a really nice French manicure, at least from what she could see beneath the blood that caked her fingers and the nails that weren't torn or missing.

This was rapidly starting to not be fun anymore. Russell was gonna get told about this so he could try to get the next batch of moonshine to be slightly less brain-traumatic. Fiona kicked at the dead girl as hard as she could. Steel-capped boot should trump satin stiletto sandal, but pain jolted all the way up her leg. She snarled and kicked Ashley in the shin, but she might as well have kicked a brick wall. The dead girl didn't even waver. She merely tilted her head to the side as her eyes began to darken. "Listen, child."

Fee gritted her teeth and scowled, but much to her credit didn't try to struggle any further. "Fine, whatever. Ghost whisper me."

"The one you call Linus is a universal constant, like Pi, or the speed of light. Except right now, he's…not." Ashley blinked and her head jerkily canted to one side. At least the bubble popped, red smeared over the choker cameo. More blood oozed from the slit on her neck and something darker snaked out of the wound. It was like tentacles or a knot of worms writhing across her skin and disappeared down the front of her dress, lost in the thick clots of blood that already stained the fabric. She drew in a slow, shuddering breath and bared her teeth in a small snarl. "He is scattered, and I suffer for it. All it takes is for one piece to remember."

"Linus is, like, right there," Fiona pointed over her shoulder toward the lounge area where she knew Linus was curled up, asleep. He'd had a rough couple of days, sure, but so had everyone. "And I have no idea what you just said to me. If I'd known dead people would be so David Lynch, I wouldn't have gotten this drunk."

"Think of it as a universal lost and found – what happens when there's nothing to find the lost? You are close to him, child." The dead girl yanked her down so they were face to face as the blood from her throat continued to darken and the black goo slithered down her body. A few tendrils wound their way up her jaw and wavered as they stretched to close the distance between her and Fiona.

"Hey, lemme go." Fee renewed her efforts to pull her hand free as she jerked back. "I don't want to be an oilien, and I like my arm! No tests!" When brute force didn't work, she twisted her arm – and herself – around to try and get some leverage. There were only so many ways a hand – dead or alive – could bend before something had to give and there was a hell of an incentive to try all of them in the gack that was trying to snake its way toward her. She could see it oozing down Ashley's arm in the direction of her hand, and even the droplets on the ground looked like they were rolling toward her feet.

The dead girl's remaining nails scraped across Fee's arm as she finally broke free and staggered into the nearby bench. She whacked her hip pretty hard, but that was nothing compared to the elation of not being possessed by sentient alien oil. She let out a short whoop of victory as she steadied herself and saw Ashley shudder violently, like she was having some kind of seizure. She gurgled like a cat trying to vomit as her head tipped back, the wound on her throat gaping wide as _something_ started to crawl out. There were definitely legs to this thing, as well as tentacles. Nausea welled up inside Fiona and she wondered if she could make it to the bathroom in time to hurl. With a sudden, spasmodic jerk that nearly bent Ashley back in two, the thing flung itself forward and hit Fee in the face. It was cold and wet and she could feel it trying to crawl into her nose and mouth. She was dimly aware of the dead girl's bones popping back into place as she righted herself before the gack oozed into her eye as she tried to pry it away. Her fingers slid over a slick, smooth surface and then sank _in_ – which was impossible, otherwise she'd be sticking her hands _into her own face_ – as something slid in through her nose and probably went straight to her brain—

*

  
Fee jerked awake and scrabbled her hands over her face. She pulled a lock of hair from her mouth and snorted her bangs away from her nose as she cautiously peeked through her fingers. Her computer monitor was still on screensaver, the tropical fish swimming lazily back and forth in their virtual tank.

"Gesundheit." The voice came from her left and she yelped as she finally noticed the amused looking young guy in a short-sleeved shirt and rumpled tie leaning against her cubicle wall. He looked weirdly familiar. He had coffees in a tray. He was a god.

"Thanks." Fiona muttered with a half-hearted smile as the grogginess from last night finally hit her full force.

"You have a…" The coffee guy reached out to pull a post-it from her hair and turned it toward his face so he could read it. "This says you're supposed to set fire to the printer on level eight by tomorrow."

"I guess getting a young priest and an old priest to bless the toner cartridges failed. It now has to be killed with fire." She made a fumbling grab for the nearest Styrofoam cup and lifted the lid to breathe in the coffee fumes. They smelled real enough and helped chase away the lingering haze of a hangover. A quick glance to her desk calendar confirmed that this was Monday.

Coffee guy – his tag said his name was Mark – continued a pleasant ramble about new systems arriving, and some kind of meeting about further streamlining the department later that day. Fee nodded and made appropriate sounds until he went away. As soon as she had the cubicle to herself, she went into panic mode and rifled through the piles of paperwork for some clue as to what was going on here. There were a lot of invoices and reports with her signature on them, which was wrong because...well, she quit the Kingdom of Boredomia for the high-flying lifestyle of a rock star.

As a last resort, she jiggled the mouse to see what was on the computer calendar. There were no less than five reminders about this morning's meeting, all with bright red bold capslock and bad line art that convinced her that her boss was really the Microsoft paperclip helper. The rest of her inbox was a soul-sucking pit of despair that masqueraded as interoffice spam.

It was official: Fiona was in Hell.

She peeled a forest of post-its off her phone and frantically dialled Candy. If anyone could give a good reality check, it was her. As the dial tone stretched into eternity, Fee swore that if she got voicemail, she wasn't going to hold back on the histrionics. At the very least, it'd mean Candy would show up in person to rescue her from this beige-tinted, fluorescent purgatory.

But then the line was picked up. "Mrrph, what?"

"Why am I in the office?!"

"Because that's where you work, sweetie." Candy mumbled, her voice thick with sleep.

"No, I know that, but _why am I working here_?" Fee hissed as loudly as she dared. "Yesterday, we were on tour, and then I drank a lot of Russell's moonshine and wound up talking to a ghost, and then I woke up here. Is this what I get for pissing off the dead? I'm not making any kind of sense, am I?"

"No. At least, not by Earthling standards."

"How about by non-Earthling standards?" Fee didn't believe a single word that she was saying, even though in her gut she knew it was the truth. She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. "Or forget the crazy scale. I'll figure something out and come home straight away so I can have a freak out at you in person."

"Nngh, okay," Candy's voice lilted up slightly and there were sounds like she'd just rolled over in bed. "Bring bagels. The blueberry ones." She hung up. Fee told herself that she'd hijack an entire bakery if that's what it took to bring some sense to her situation. Her one major hitch in this plan was that she had no idea how to escape from the office. Somehow, she doubted that a serendipitous courier would deliver a mysterious phone whereby she'd get helpful directions from Laurence Fishburne. She peeked over the divider to see if there was anyone that might impede her escape. Aside from the occasional person going to/from the printer and fax machines, the coast seemed clear.

She grabbed her espresso and handbag, and made like she was in a hurry to do something more important than be here. It was weird that her feet still knew the path out of the maze of cubicles even after all this time. She was almost at the door when her luck ran out and Mark-the-bringer-of-coffee caught up to her. Try as she might to sidestep him, or make it clear that she was in a headed elsewhere, somehow he managed to talk her into going up to level eight to deal with the printers. He looked so happy to fill out the whiteboard and shift the magnets to say he was leaving the IT department. Maybe this wasn't just Fiona's personal version of Hell after all.

An excuse to go home presented itself up on level eight when the printer spat sparks and shorted out, but not before the ink cartridge exploded all over her. Once the initial shock wore off, she gathered up her bag and what dignity she had left, turned to Mark and said, "I _quit_."

Fiona didn't want to stick around to find out what repercussions she might have to face. She kept her chin up and walked out of the building as though being splattered with drying ink was completely normal. She stopped off at a bakery (and didn't have to hijack it) on her way home. She also stopped off to get a bottle of bourbon, because it was bound to be after five somewhere in the world and maybe if she got drunk enough, she'd wake up back in her own life.

*

  
Candy was perched by the window so she could blow smoke from her cigarette outside. She had her hair in curlers, and her purple puppy-printed pyjama pants stuck out from under her fuchsia pink kimono robe. She took one look over her glasses at Fee, and said, "You look like you got into a fight with a giant squid and lost."

"I had a printer explode on me. It was awesome. And then I quit." Fee hefted the bag of bagels and left them on the kitchen counter. "I think I might commemorate the occasion with getting a squid tattoo. I think I have space on my elbow." She carefully started to peel out of her work clothes.

"Uhhh, bathroom is occupied. You might want to wait." Candy said with a nervous laugh.

Fee set her jacket on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and looked at the bathroom door. It was closed and there were the sounds of the shower running. She looked back at Candy. " _Oh_." The phone call suddenly made a bit more sense. " _Ohhh_. I'm the one having the legitimate existential crisis and you sent me to get your post-coital snack food."

"It can double as legitimate existential crisis comfort food. And breakfast." Candy stubbed out her cigarette in the planter and elbowed the window back down. She pulled her pink robe tighter around her frame as she trudged into the kitchen to raid the bagels. "Speaking of, tell me all about it while I get the coffee started. And try not to squid all over the place."

Fee leaned against the bench and stayed as far out of the way as she could. "What did I do yesterday?"

"What you always do on a Sunday, honey. You and me went out and partied like it's 1999. You borrowed my butterfly top because it makes your rack look awesome." Candy replied as she filled the coffee machine. "The first club was a bust, we moved onto that underground joint with that college band that was painful to listen to, and then things get fuzzy because there were vodka shots to try and make them seem less painful. I lost you after a while, but I figured that was because you went home early so as not to be a zombie today. Which is okay, because uh...I wasn't alone for long." She tilted her head toward the bathroom, her cheeks flushing pink, almost the same colour as her hair.

"See, that's not how yesterday went for me." Fiona said quietly. Her stomach twisted and she wanted to hug herself, but her hands and shirt were sticky with ink. She settled for hunching over slightly. "And that's where the crazy part comes in." She explained about how she was supposed to be on tour – albeit, an insane tour with the end of the world being really fucking nigh, the mural on the side of the bus said so – with her brother and Candy and the whole gang for the first time in years. She explained the weird that went on with the other bands, from Oliver's brain troubles and how he was part of a secret government program with Titus, to how Human Robotics Project had an honest to god robot as their lead singer (which may have explained why the whole band was kinda evil), to how Linus briefly left them to get his godhood back on and came back some kind of mess. Fee's coping mechanism up to this point was to just roll with it as it happened and then get as drunk as humanly possible in the hopes that the parts she couldn't really cope with would be reduced to indistinct, fuzzy, half-remembered things. This was a great plan, except for the part where a dead girl suddenly showed up and spat gack in Fee's face. By the time she was done, the bagels had been toasted, the coffee brewed, and both Fee and Candy sat around the kitchen table and stared solemnly into their mugs. "When I say it all out loud, everything seems crazier than usual, but I swear to you, I am not making up a word of this. It really happened. I don't expect you to believe me, just...help me figure out what my next move should be."

"That's just it," Candy said after a long pause. "I believe you."

Relief welled up inside Fiona and she was pretty sure she could cry. "Thanks."

"So," Candy pushed her glasses up her nose. "Like, okay, you're not _my_ Fee. The question then becomes, what happened to my Fee, and how do we get both you and her back? I'm looking at this like some kind of weirdo _Quantum Leap_ where you landed in my Fee and it's entirely possible that my Fee is flailing around in your world and having this exact same conversation with your version of me. And I'm telling her the same thing." She blinked a couple of times and tilted her head to the side. "Yeah, that made some kinda sense. I think."

"No, that makes a disturbing amount of sense." Fiona massaged her temple with her two unstained fingers. "Though, a visit from Ziggy would be so helpful right now. The whole ghost thing was just wrong." She shivered and felt nauseous seeing herself still covered in ink. If any of it started to move, nothing was going to stop her from shrieking and flailing around the apartment.

"About that..." Candy trailed off when someone exited the bathroom.

"Walk of shame?" Fee sat a little taller in her chair to try and see over the bench and to the mystery company that had been hogging all the hot water.

"Stop that." Candy kicked her under the table. "No sneaking off, missy! We have bagels, coffee, and cigarettes."

"Ugh, those words are magical." The mystery person trudged into the kitchen, and Fiona nearly choked on her coffee. Because it was Linus. Or, it was Linus if he were a _girl_. She had faded jeans and a dark t-shirt with a rainbow and unicorn on it, her hair was damp and carelessly tussled and eyeliner a little smudged, and her expression carefully set to bored. She could have been strolling into a photoshoot for something arty, risqué, or selling knock-off Rolex watches, instead of trying to sneak out across the living room unnoticed.

"Just a tip, Fee's not a huge fan of the smoking smell, so try to stick near the window." Candy held out her plate with half a bagel still on it. "Also, Raquel, this is Fee. Fee, Raquel. Between the two of you, I am out of bed before midday. This is an achievement."

Fiona managed a small wave amongst her helpless gestures to herself and sputtering as she took the coffee to the sink and tried not to choke to death. To a certain degree, she could handle Quantum Leaping into a version of herself that had stayed in the office far longer than sanity ought to allow, but this was a whole other level of weird that she wasn't prepared to deal with.

Linus was a girl. A really hot girl. A girl that slept with Candy. And a girl that had no idea who Fiona was. Fee started to count backwards from ten while she took a couple of deep breaths that weren't fatal.

"You okay?" Candy's voice came from nearby and Fee felt someone touch her shoulder.

"I'm good. Kinda." She replied, a little hoarse.

"But not really." Candy translated and Fee had to wonder if that's something that she'd picked up from the contact, or just something Candy had figured out from all the time they'd known each other. Sometimes, living with a psychic sucked.

Fee cast a quick glance over her shoulder and ducked her head down. "Remember that part where I said our manager was a god in the literal sense?" she said in a low voice and glanced back at Raquel before she gave Candy a stern look. " _That's_ Linus."

"What?" Candy hissed, blinking far too much behind her glasses. "Noooo. What?! No, I think I woulda picked up on something like that last night. Or this morning. And I really ought to know." She wiggled her fingers in front of her face. "I'm spooky, I can feel these things. Also, _girl_. Ridiculously hot girl with guitarist skills."

" _I know_." Fee could feel her face heat up. She was quite aware of Linus' skills, both professionally and intimately, regardless of what universe they happened to be in. "And feel free to go crawling around inside my psyche for confirmation."

"You guys realise that I'm standing right here and can hear every word, right?" Raquel said as she picked blueberries out of her bagel.

"Sorry," Candy turned around with an embarrassed smile. "It's just...this morning is very weird for my friend, here. I mean, aside from the losing out to a giant squid."

"It was a printer explosion. Really." Fiona's shoulders slumped. "The rest is...okay, fine. I am going to embrace the weird. Raquel, are you now or have you ever been a god? And I don't mean beating _Guitar Hero_ on expert, I mean an honest to goodness divine being from a higher plane?"

"No. I get the feeling that being a god is one of those things that sorta sticks with you." Raquel replied in an utterly neutral tone, so it was impossible to say if she was telling the truth or making fun of her. Of course she'd say that, because Linus would say the exact same thing. And she was Linus. Fiona could feel her brain starting to melt as she tried to figure out the logic of what was going on here.

"Okay then. So, I'm officially insane, probably unemployed, as of right now, and in desperate need to go de-ink myself. This seems as good a time as any to make an exit before I make an even bigger crackpot of myself. Feel free to talk about me behind my back." She edged her way around the kitchen table and retrieved her jacket. "Really nice to meet you, Raquel." She pasted on a smile as best she could and then hurried away before either of them could notice that she'd started to cry.

*

  
By the time Fee cleaned herself up – both in the de-inking, and pulling herself together – Raquel had gone. Candy was in the process of taking out her curlers and checking email when Fee felt she was ready to emerge from the bathroom and face the world once more.

"Oh, it's you." Candy said with barely an upward glance as she stuck a bobby pin in her mouth. "I mean, I kinda doubted that the shower would mean some presto-change-o and my Fee would be back and you'd be where you should be, but it was a fun thought while it lasted."

"Gee, don't sound too eager to get rid of me." Fee flopped down on the couch.

"You're the one that wants to go." Candy offered with a small shrug and went cross-eyed as she carefully pulled the curler on her fringe free. "Besides, if the shower was magical, maybe next time I step in, I can go visit your world."

"Noooo, you don't want that." Fiona pulled herself up far enough to wave at Candy, like the hand signal would somehow make the warning more valid. "Seriously. I love you and all, but if I'm freaking out this much by being stuck in a world where I still work in the office and Linus is Raquel, you wouldn't like my world of melting brains and a boy that's also a cat."

"I still don't get that part." Candy frowned, blinked, and suddenly looked surprised at her laptop. "Oh. Wow. You didn't say that The Unicorn Murders were cute _and_ single."

"What?" Fee lost the strength to hold herself up and flopped back on the couch. She could feel Candy rolling her eyes from beyond the cushions. Candy moved around the couch and shoved Fee's feet off before she set the laptop down on the coffee table, the page open on The Unicorn Murders official website. The header had a group shot of the band posed in designer suits and glaring fiercely back from the screen. Dirk had his trademark silver sparkles while the rest of the gang were in black.

"They're _adorable_." Candy smiled as best she could with a pin in her mouth and pointed to Oliver. "Especially him." Her smile grew when she looked over to see Fee's indignant stare. "What? I can't look up a comrade in brain-melt? If he has the same number in this world as he does in yours, you can call him up for me and we can have a chat. It'll be great."

"No, it won't be great. You're just as likely to get his boyfriend." Fee pointed to Titus. "He's really protective of Oliver and his squishy brains."

"Even better, as you and he can talk about living with psychics." Candy finally took the pin from her mouth and set it on the table, then ran her fingers through her hair. It stuck up in places, but mostly it was a wild mess of bright pink Monroe waves. "I just want to talk, honey. It's nothing against you, or my parents, but sometimes it's nice to talk to someone who knows what it's really like. Speaking of, maybe you should call your brother and see if he got zapped here with you. Weird likes two of a kind."

Fee went cold. She'd been so wrapped up in herself that she never even thought that maybe Seth had been yanked into this mess with her. "Shit." Her stomach twisted. "If I woke up in the office, he could still be a paramedic. I think my soul is withering on his behalf as I say that."

"Uhhh, no." Candy leaned forward and typed in a new web address and hit enter. The Optimus Bus Corporation page loaded and Fee had an epic sense of déjà vu. She used to design the website back when she was in the band and they were trying to make a name for themselves. When they finally hit it big, the label had their own webmaster take over and consult with the redesigns according to album. The current one was in keeping with the latest with a dark Victorian fairytale vibe, complete with random movement from the spider image in the corner. Candy scrolled around to the bio section, which had both the band and their characters from the album. "If I'm not mistaken, this is still your brother, right?" she pointed to Seth's picture.

"Yeah, I know who my brother is." Fee threw the cushion at Candy. "So fine, maybe he woke up still in a band and hasn't realised that this isn't the same world, yet. I need my phone so I can give him shit for still pining away for Donna."

"Some things are trans-universal, I guess." Candy mused as she sat back. "Please tell me he does something about it in your world."

There was no real delicate way of dancing around that one. "Sort of?"

"You're holding out." And of course, Candy had to pick up on it straight away. Fiona decided that this was a good time to go back to her room to find her phone, only Candy caught hold of her arm before she could get up. Her grip wasn't hard and Fee didn't yank back, but Candy gasped and her eyes lost focus. There was a cold rush that went through Fee's veins and made the hairs on her arm and back of her neck stand on end. She froze, unwilling to move until whatever it was ended. Candy's eyes fluttered and she blinked, her attention suddenly back. She shook herself out of her trance and let go of Fee's arm like she'd been burned. "Oh my god."

"Was that the vampire thing? Because there's a vampire thing." Fiona asked quietly.

"There's vampires!" Candy rubbed her temple. "What the hell?! And Seth did that? That's how he goes about finally broaching the topic of how he really feels? Jesus, that is so fucked up."

"I know!" Fiona shuddered at the memory. She'd been there when Seth dragged Donna back to the bus, both of them covered in blood. Donna was so pale and so cold, it was some kind of miracle that she'd even been alive, but Fiona always figured it was Seth's healing skills. It wasn't until later when Donna stopped breathing and the wound started to close that she realised what he'd done. He let Fiona yell at him and then got an icepack for her after she kicked the bus tyre hard enough to jar her foot. This was the first major thing that she wasn't sure if she could live with on her conscience. She let her brother turn her friend into a vampire and he was mostly okay with that, considering the alternative. She wasn't sure if she would do the same if their positions were reversed. However, she was the first to volunteer to open a vein in preparation for Donna's return to the land of the living. After all, what's a little exsanguination between friends? Fiona cast a glance back to the bottle of bourbon on the kitchen bench. It was looking mighty fine. And she could drink and make phone calls at the same time. "One fatal flaw in your plan to call up Oliver and talk brain-melts – how are you going to explain how you got his number?"

Candy laughed. "I'm a psychic, duh. I think that will be infinitely more believable than my best friend was sucked from another universe into this one."

"And yet, you believe me about that part." Fiona felt her heart skip a beat on the off chance that maybe, just maybe, Candy was only humouring her out of some rule in The Unsaid Guidebook for Best Friends.

"Yeah." Candy's expression slowly sobered. "And I don't have to be psychic to do that. I know you well enough to know that you could not make up something this insane, no matter how hard you tried, how stressed out you are, or how much you've had to drink. And I know you well enough to see that you've got a spark in your eye that I haven't seen in my Fiona for years, not since she left the band. The brainflash is just a bonus. A really horrible, traumatic, gack-filled, gory bonus."

"I could hug you right now, but you'd probably get more brainflash bonuses of the unfun variety." Fiona could feel her eyes start to burn and her throat get tight again. Candy just rolled her eyes and threw the couch cushion at her face.

"Call your brother. And write down Oliver's number for me while I call someone who knows more about ghosts than me. Consider it recompense for the brainflash." She pointed two fingers at her temple, her thumb cocked like a gun, went cross-eyed, and made a popping noise.

"Not funny."

Candy waved her away. "Vamoose."

Reluctantly, Fee retreated to her room to make her phone call. It was disconcerting to be surrounded by something so familiar, yet alien at the same time. This was definitely her room, but the Fiona of this world apparently didn't like b-grade horror movies or music memorabilia. She had a fancy shoe collection and half-decent wardrobe that included dresses instead of a collection of band t-shirts that she'd stolen off her brother. None of her jeans were torn – by accident or by design – and her guitar had been hidden away at the back of the closet, like it was something to be ashamed about. She made a mental note that if she was stuck in this world, she was going to re-pierce her nose and get her tattoo sleeves extended down to her wrists so she'd never work in an office again.

The phone call to her brother went better than expected. He sounded like he was half asleep, and mumbled something about regretting feeding coffee to Jeff. He also dropped the news that he was on the Atomic Vaudeville tour. Fiona used this opportunity to grill him on possible weird events – such as zombies, cults, Donna's Evil Plan For Sleazy Tour Romance, and Tim's boyfriend being eaten by a cat – and this became a smooth segue into, "So, did you wake up in another dimension today?"

"I don't know?" Seth replied with a yawn. "It's honestly hard to tell."

"Call me if things seem weirder than usual." She made him promise then the phone got passed around for brief hellos from the rest of the band before Vernon accidentally hung up on her.

Candy was still consulting the Ghostbuster when Fee returned to the living room. She was making agreeable sounds as she scribbled on a post-it. "Hold on, just a second," she said and held the phone away from her face. "Hey, about the dead prom queen – do you have any idea what she might want?"

"Not really?" Fee shrugged. "I was drunk and the conversation was more about how she looked really great for someone who was dead. Also, she killed herself over ten years ago. I'm pretty sure that's as finished as business can get."

"Hunh, okay." Candy relayed this to whoever she was talking to on the phone and went back to scribbling notes.

"Did you tell your Ghostbuster about the other voice? The one that came from Ashley's neck?" Fee asked as loudly as she dared and Candy nodded. She ended the call with a cheerful promise to catch up at some stage and peered at the post-its she'd stuck to her leg.

"I told my Ghostbuster everything that you told me and we both agree that you're probably not dealing with a ghost." Her smile was tense and she took off her glasses to give Fiona a worried look. "Ghosts don't fling people into other universes. But he's going to check out Ashley anyway, to make sure she's well and truly at rest. Meanwhile, you and me, we're going to recreate the situation that made her appear in the first place. This isn't a good idea, and frankly I'd much rather do it in a salted circle in the Vatican, but I don't think they have enough liquor. And I don't think there's enough in the house, either. So, we're going to hit the town, get you wasted, and if I stick to you like glue, maybe I can pick up the vibe on what this thing really is."

"So, you're basically saying that you have bupkis and you're going to use me as ghost-bait?" Even if it hadn't just been outlined in a plan, going out and getting drunk seemed like a great idea.

"No! Not bupkis! There's ideas! And it's entirely possible that you're demon-bait. We won't know until it turns up. Try not to antagonise it too much."

Fiona wanted to point out that she didn't antagonise the dead prom queen the first time around. Much. But she was really drunk and Ashley had been really cryptic and that could not be a good combination. But she couldn't get her brain past the new idea that there might be a demon involved. This was a whole new level of crazy that she just was not prepared to deal with, and one thing a lifetime's worth of horror movies had taught her was that these things hardly ever ended well.

"Shit." It was the most coherent thing she could muster.

*

  
Fiona managed to not have a mental breakdown for the rest of the day. In fact, she was in good spirits by the time Candy dragged her off to one of the newer bars that she'd been itching to try but apparently could never talk the Fiona into this universe into visiting. Candy also invited Raquel to join this social experiment.

"I hope you don't mind, but seeing how the point is for you to get drunk and me to get spooky, I thought it'd be better to have someone around that isn't involved just in case." Candy said as she slipped her arm around Raquel's waist.

"And this has nothing at all to do with a second date?" Fee raised her eyebrows one at a time.

Raquel snorted and the corners of her mouth curled up in a tiny smile. "Last night was not a date. A scientific exercise in drinking and demon manifestation is a date, and one I could hardly turn down."

"You think we're crazy, right?" Fiona had to ask, because even she was still having a hard time accepting her situation and she was the one living it. She had no idea how this may seem to spectators.

"Yeah." Raquel said, and shrugged. "But what if you're not? If this were a horror movie, I don't want to be that asshole that turns her back on the heroine and still gets her face eaten for all her disbelief. I like my face. I don't want it getting eaten."

This automatically made Raquel the buyer of the first round. Because she was the Linus of this universe, she managed to get them into the VIP area, where they made themselves at home on a bright blue couch in a corner. There was also the disturbingly familiar ritual of Fiona trying to drink Raquel under the table. It never worked back in her own world, either. She figured that it had either had something to do with Linus being a god, or that his expressions were too hard to read, or both. But for a little while, it looked like she was finally going somewhere – Raquel slouched a little and was intently staring at the lights because continuing the conversation might involve too much effort. Fee stopped being quite so concerned with how crazy she might have sounded and focused more on trying not to throw up. Candy snuggled up next to Raquel and sipped a soda. "Anything dead-person related?"

"No." Fee struggled to her feet and tried not to stumble too much. "Just...bathroom. Be right back."

She pushed her way into a stall just in time to spit out a mouthful of alcohol and bile. She sagged to the floor and waited for the room to stop spinning. She also poked herself in the side with her index finger. "The liver is evil, and it must be punished. I thought I trained you to have a higher tolerance for this stuff. Especially since I switched to Russell's moonshine." And then she remembered that this wasn't really her liver and boring Fiona in this universe probably didn't give hers a work out quite like she did back home. Hell, Fiona in this universe probably never even tried moonshine, least of all volunteered to be a guinea pig for Russell's experiments in distillation. Fee was even more disappointed in her bland alternative self. She made a face and lurched over to the toilet bowl again as a fresh wave of nausea swept through her.

This was turning out to be a horrible plan. Fortunately, after the second round of retching, her innards seemed to settle down. Fee fumbled to stand, hit the button to flush, and stumbled over to the sinks to splash some water on her face and get rid of the bitter taste that still stuck to the back of her throat. Naturally, this is when the light above the mirror started to flicker and buzz like it was about to go out. She swore under her breath and dried off her hands before she jiggled the diffuser to try and give the fluorescent tube better contact and get the light to settle down. It gave one last sputter and died, plunging the bathroom into semi darkness.

"Great." Fee sighed heavily and rubbed her eye. She wasn't awake or sober enough to deal with this shit. "I am Fiona, destroyer of light bulbs." She went to high five her reflection and nearly jumped out of her skin as she caught a glimpse of a pale face beyond her shoulder. She spun around and used the sink to steady herself, but there was nobody there. Cautiously, she turned back to the mirror to see Ashley Watson smiling behind her. This was straight out of horror movie cliché 101. "Seriously? You're gonna pull a Bloody Mary on me?" Fee jabbed her finger at the mirror, right at Ashley's face, like it would somehow translate to a physical blow to the ghost. "Not cool. And doubly not cool considering that I am so drunk right now."

"How's it going?" Ashley asked, completely unfazed by the fingerprints that now smudged her face.

"How's what going? I'm talking to a ghost in a mirror. Or possibly a demon. Are you a demon?" Fiona leaned her forehead against the glass, which was cool and soothing in its steadiness.

Ashley laughed. She arched just enough that the slit on her throat gaped open and Fee caught a glimpse of shiny white spine. "I'm not a demon."

"You're not Ashley, either."

"No."

"So what are you and why are you doing this to me? What the hell did I do to deserve this?"

It could have been Fee's imagination, but it looked like Ashley rolled her eyes as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear before it got caught in the slit in her throat. "I told you everything you need to know." Her voice dropped to a watery rasp as she gave a violent shudder. " _I'm waiting._ " She wiped her fingers through the wound on her neck and moved to touch Fiona's shoulder. Fee yanked herself out of reach and cracked her skull against the wall as she flailed to stay upright. She finally lost her balance and crashed to the floor, making the world spin in double. The last thing she remembered was that the light flickered back on and a handprint faded from the mirror.

*

  
Fiona jerked awake, and found herself tied to a chair. Her head hurt too much for it to be a hangover. She could feel something sticky on the back of her neck and fuzzily remembered hitting her head in a bathroom. That did not explain the tied to a chair part. Well, not entirely. If Candy somehow got the vibe that Fee could be possessed, maybe she was tied to a chair for her own good. But she was pretty sure she didn't have any demonic activity going on inside her head, just one beast of a headache. Then again, gods had sprung forth from migraines, so maybe she really wasn't in any position to argue.

"Hello?" she called into the dark, empty space in front of her. "I'm not possessed! You don't have to have me tied up!"

"It's still daylight. Nobody's going to help you." The reply was unexpected, the voice somewhat familiar. Fee groggily tried to put a face to it as she peered at the shadows.

"Conner?" She could vaguely make out movement and heard a soft shuffle on the concrete that may have been shoes or paws. The eerie shine on his eyes gave him away before he emerged from the dark, the feline glimmer a reminder that while he may have looked like a stunningly handsome young man, it was just a pleasant mask. Tim's boyfriend was long dead, and, as far as Fiona knew, the thing that wore Conner's face didn't actually have a name. She never really thought to ask. "You could always help me?"

"Why would I do that?" he edged around her warily. "Tim said he'd kill me if he ever saw me again. And you're on Tim's side."

"I'm not on anyone's side. I'm on _my_ side." She tugged uselessly at the cuffs that kept her tethered. Her stomach flip-flopped at the possibility that wasn't in Kansas anymore, and the previous world of the office and Raquel was long gone. "Uh, can you at least tell me why I'm tied to a chair?"

"It makes for a captive audience." He said, and shrugged. "So to speak."

She pretty much walked right into that one and if her hands weren't behind her back, she would have buried her face in them. Instead, she gritted her teeth and tried to figure out how she got here – she guessed that Ashley had something to do with it – and where to go from here. "Just out of curiosity, you wouldn't have happened to notice anything weird before I woke up? Like, I don't know, a dead girl?"

"Sure."

Her heart skipped a beat. "I really need to talk to her."

His expression fell and he started to move back into the darkness. "Everybody's dead around here."

"Don't go, Conner. Please?" Fiona tried to quash the dread that had started to settle at the base of her spine. "I don't want to be alone."

"You won't be." He smiled bitterly, a flash of white teeth too sharp for a human, before he faded into the gloom. "Everybody's dead around here. You'll be in good company."

She couldn't help but think that the Cheshire Cat would have been proud of the performance. Though, this had to be the creepiest rabbit hole and it was just her luck that she had to tumble down into it. Fiona shuddered and slumped forward as far as the cuffs would allow.

The sound of lights click-buzzing on snapped her out of it. She blinked in the sudden brightness and moaned because it felt like it went straight through her skull and out the other side. "Ow."

Maybe the head injury was worse than she thought, because she could see the shoes of someone moving toward her long before she heard the soft scuffle against the concrete. At first she thought Conner was back, and, as she blinked the room back into focus, she was half-right. He was there, leaning against a wall and chewing on a nail as he watched Oliver cross the room. Fiona let out an amused snort because it was nice to see that no matter what crazy universe she wound up in, some things apparently never changed. He still looked like an Avenger fantasy in his nice waistcoat, striped tie, and shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, even with his dark hair sticking up in places. Maybe in this world, he really was a mad scientist, or loveable spy. Titus could be his Emma Peel, right down to the slinky catsuit.

Oliver frowned down at her. "You shouldn't be awake."

That probably wasn't on the list of things said to someone during a rescue. Fiona's heart sank. She tugged uselessly on the cuffs and scowled right back at him. "You want to tell me why I'm tied to a chair and my head is killing me? Conner only gives me creepy cat-logic."

"Protection." He swept her hair away from her neck and she felt his fingers press into the sticky mess near her hairline. "I don't want you elbowing me in the face again. You knocked out a couple of my teeth." He smiled wide enough to let her see him lick his incisors. The tip of his tongue rested under the delicate point of a fang. "I got new ones, now."

He drew his hand away from her, his fingers stained dark with sticky red. He kept his gaze steady on her face as he licked them. Fee wrinkled her nose and shuddered. It was one thing to watch vampires eat people's faces in movies, it was something else to be confronted with the reality of it and it never stopped making her skin crawl.

"Okay. So, now what?" She surprised herself with how she kept her voice level. "I'm tied to a chair, Conner's already started on the captive audience puns and you're here with your creepy suave self. I'm really hoping this isn't the part where you explain your evil master plan, because I'm pretty sure that's one of the things the Villain's Cliché Handbook advises against." Though, even if he was going to go with the villainous monologue, it wasn't like she was in any position to argue with it.

"I was going to be civil and ask how Titus is, but I might as well skip all that and get to the evil master plan. Let's see how heroic a hunter your brother can be when you're one of us." Oliver smiled wide enough to flash his sharp teeth as he winked and tangled his hand in her hair to wrench her head back to bare her throat. And then he bit her.

At first, it didn't really register; it was more like a rough love bite. Under different circumstances, it might have been pleasant. But then came the sharp sting of his teeth as they broke her skin and he made a needy noise, almost a purr, in the back of his throat as he began to feed. She tried to pull back, but his grip tightened painfully in her hair and he pressed himself harder against her. She gritted her teeth to keep from crying out in pain, but couldn't hold it all back. She let out a choked sob when she felt something like the cool rush that accompanied Candy's psychic flashes.

But Candy's ability never dug itself into her nerves like it wanted to pull her in a thousand different directions, tearing her to shreds. Oliver moaned softly and bit a little harder. Stars danced across Fiona's vision and the pain started to lessen into more of an insistent tug, to lean into him, to press themselves together so there was no way to tell where one of them ended and the other began. Beyond that, she could feel the pull toward someone else. She had a sense of standing somewhere high, the wind on her face and in her hair, watching the lights flicker across the horizon. They'd be coming back soon, they needed to hurry and be prepared. A thrill of excitement went through her at the prospect of seeing Titus again, just to be able to break his heart again and again. After all, he was the one that chose to leave her and Oliver. She was also in a room, punching a target as hard as she could and ignoring the pain that jarred along her arm. She split the bag open and sand puffed out, the tear right across the creased magazine photo of Seth. She hated him so much for what he did to her. She was pressed against a warm body, finally feeding. It had been so long since she'd tasted blood straight from the source and why anyone wanted to give that up, she didn't know. And the fear just made it even better. But something was wrong, she couldn't get in, and that was weird because Fiona had always broadcast every thought that went through her head...

Oliver jerked back, blood smeared across his mouth. He used his grip in her hair to force her to look at him. "Why can't I read you?" His voice sounded strange. Fiona had the words on the tip of her own tongue as she stared back at him. She was certain that her bewildered look mirrored his. "You can't keep me out. Nobody can."

"I don't know what you're talking about." She gritted out through her teeth, the sensations of being elsewhere starting to fade, but the pull was still there and she found herself arching as far as her position would allow.

"It doesn't matter." He licked his lips and untangled his hand from her hair. She sagged, shivering as bile rose in the back of her throat. The cuffs loosened and she flinched away from the feather light touch of Oliver's fingers on her forearms. Fiona rubbed her wrists to try and get the feeling back in her fingers. "Run." He said.

Dude, seriously? Even if she wasn't certain she'd trip over her own feet, he was still a vampire. When did running away from something that was faster and stronger than the average person ever get to be a good idea? "What would be the point?"

"It gets the blood pumping. And I want some sport."

She glared up at him as best she could manage; she was pretty sure it wasn't very effective given that she shivered in the chair. She was so _cold_. "Tough shit. I'm not playing your game, Oliver."

"Yeah, you are." He leaned down again and licked at the bite. The worst part was that it actually felt good. Fiona's stomach lurched and she jerked back violently enough to topple off the seat. She jarred her shoulder and knee when she hit the ground, and that was okay; she'd rather be hurting from scrapes and bruises than get bitten again. She coughed weakly, glad that nothing came up, and glanced at Conner. He was still reclining by the wall, now absorbed in examining his nails. Why didn't he help? Or was he waiting for Oliver to be done so he could eat? Her arms nearly gave out on her at that thought. She didn't want to be alive when he started.

She gasped when Oliver tangled his hand in her hair and pulled her head back to bare the bite once more. And she hated herself for crying out when she felt the sharp sting again. At least this time, her vision went fuzzy and dim around the edges before she finally blacked out.

*

  
This time around, consciousness was sluggish. Fiona was still cold, but now her limbs were stiff and sore. For one precious moment she hoped that when she opened her eyes that she'd be in a whole new weird world. She rubbed her neck and whimpered softly as she felt the bite, puffy and bruised. _Shit_. The world lurched and she felt herself bump up against someone.

"Watch your driving. Fee's waking up." She squinted up to see Linus peering down at her. She almost did a double-take, just to make sure he was really him.

"You're a really pretty girl," she mumbled and tried to sit on her own, only gave up when pain shot all the way from her skull, down her shoulder, and right to her fingertips. He quietly wrapped his jacket around her shoulders and helped her up so she could lean against him. The jacket smelled like leather, stale cigarettes, sweat and beer. It smelled like every basement club back home. Fiona huddled into it, breathed it in, and smiled to herself as she figured out they were in the back of a van, near a stack of equipment boxes. They really were kicking it old school like in the road tripping days. All she was really missing was someone's knee digging into her back. "Man, I never thought I'd get to do this again."

"Me either. You scared me." Linus said. He pulled a flask out from his back pocket and handed it to her. "You'll probably need it."

"It's probably a bad idea, but I'm fresh out of good ones." She unscrewed the top, took a swig, and nearly choked as it burned her tongue and all the way down her throat. " _Jesus!_ I thought Russell was getting better at the moonshine, not worse!" She rasped and shakily handed the flask back. This was one hell of a way to wake up.

"Stop the van!" Linus told whoever was driving. The brakes screeched and Fee slid against him as they came to a sudden stop. He tugged the jacket away from her neck and pressed his fingers against the bite. She hissed and tried to flinch away, but he kept poking at the holes. "That was holy water, Fee. One of these punctures feels more swollen than the other."

"Can you stop poking me in the vampire bite?" She batted at his hand. "That fucking _hurts._ "

He slid his hand up to cup her face, his thumb lightly rubbing against her chin. "Who did this?"

"Oliver bit me." She said and shuddered at the memory. "He wanted me to run, he said he wanted some sport." From the front of the van, there was the sound of something hitting the steering wheel and a string of curses.

"Aren't you glad you're not driving right now, Titus?" Linus called over his shoulder. A door slammed and she heard footsteps round the van, then the back doors opened and Titus climbed in. He had a gun in his hands.

"What else did he say?" Titus asked. His whole body was practically vibrating with barely controlled rage. He was short enough that he only had to duck to avoid the roof, and maybe because of his size he didn't usually seem so intimidating. But there was a scary amount of intensity radiating from him as he glared down at her and loaded a round into the chamber of the gun. "Was Alex there?"

"Oliver didn't say anything else and no, Alex wasn't…" she trailed off and shook her head. Alex hadn't been anywhere in sight, except for that part when Oliver was feeding and Fee could feel the others, those already awake for the night, and those starting to emerge. Alex had been the one on the roof, the one wanting to watch Titus squirm. Laughter bubbled through the back of her head, and a high, giddy giggle escaped her lips. She clamped her hand over her mouth as Titus' hands started to tremble.

"This is what they want, Titus." Linus said in a quiet, calm tone. Bless him for being the one to keep his head in the middle of a potentially explosive situation. "Don't play into their hands."

"Easy for you to say. At least, for _now_." Titus said with a snarl and handed the gun to Linus. "Let's see if you're a big enough asshole to do what I couldn't."

Linus looked at the gun in his hand and set it on the floor beside him. "I'm not going to shoot her."

"Maybe not. But she's still gonna die." Titus turned and hopped out of the van, his shoulders slumped and the fight suddenly gone. But the anger still burned in his gaze as he gave them one last look and closed the back doors.

Fee eased her hand from her mouth and looked over at Linus. "I'm gonna become one of them, aren't I?" she whispered. He nodded slowly. She let out a heavy sigh and slumped against him. "Great. I stopped wanting to be a vampire when I was seventeen. At least now, I have a better hairstyle and my skin's cleared up. But werewolves will _always_ be cooler."

His smile was tiny and brief as he wrapped his arm around her and gave her a squeeze. He still wouldn't look at her.

*

  
Near as Fiona could tell, they were at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. She was left to sit in the van while Titus and Linus had an argument out of earshot. She could just make out their dim shapes in the dark, Titus almost disappearing into the shadows thanks to his penchant for monochrome, and Linus being unreadable as ever. Fee curled up inside the jacket and quietly froze her ass off. Every now and then, she breathed on her fingers to get some feeling back in the tips. Her feet were like lumps of ice inside her boots.

Christ, she was going to turn into a vampire.

"Guys?" she called out to them and winced as her voice cracked. "Where's Seth?"

Linus and Titus exchanged a look before Linus came back to the van. Titus hung back for a heartbeat and wandered off out of sight. Linus took hold of her hands and gently squeezed them. His hands were almost burning hot compared to her icy skin.

"Seth isn't coming."

Fiona wondered if getting a stake through the heart would hurt as much as those three little words. The last of her bravado crumbled and she felt the tears she'd been fighting started to fall.

" _Fuck._ " Her voice was thin and wavered.

"C'mon, let's go inside." He gave her hands another squeeze. "You can get warm, and I can finally smoke without Titus giving me his epic bitchface."

She smiled in spite of herself and pushed herself up on wobbly legs. "I refuse to believe that you'd be cowed by anyone's bitchface."

"Yeah, well, there's a first for everything." He shrugged a little and helped her walk toward the house.

The interior wasn't any more encouraging than the exterior; the furniture was sparse and everything smelled like dust. The tour was short and consisted more of vague waves toward amenities. When he was sure that she was capable of standing on her own, Linus went off in search of coffee and cigarettes. She took the opportunity to lock herself in the bathroom and clean up her bite.

It looked worse than she thought it would be. The movies totally lied. Vampires don't leave two neat puncture wounds that can be easily explained as bug bites or whatever. She had a huge purplish bruise on the side of her neck with a couple of reddish crescents left by Oliver's teeth in addition to the puncture wounds. She used a damp rag to wash away the dried blood and carefully poked around. Linus was right; one of the main wounds did feel more like a lump than the other. It felt like that time she had an infected mosquito bite after a school camp. It ached and itched and there was ooze. She wasn't game enough to squeeze that part of the bite to see if there was ooze. It hurt too much and all this probably wasn't doing anything for the bruises. To be on the safe side, she also checked her teeth. Her canines didn't look or feel any sharper.

After the initial inspection, she let herself have a breakdown. Again. This was the second one in two days. Or was it the same day? She had no idea she'd been unconscious, but she was pretty sure she hadn't gotten any sleep for a while. Fiona also took back everything mean she ever thought about the boring world where she was still an office worker. Granted, she would have gone crazy if she was still stuck in the IT department, but that kind of stress was manageable.

Here, she was going to turn into a fucking _vampire_. And her brother was nowhere around so she could be a total sap and babble all the stupid things to him that she wanted to say before it happened. She probably couldn't go home and see her mother or sister, either. Or visit Dad in the cemetery. For all she knew, maybe he was undead too. Fiona laughed, only it came out as a choked sob.

Then there was Linus and Titus. They weren't family and she was hesitant to even call Titus a friend. They ran in the same circles, but had so little to do with each other. It wasn't like they spent weekends shooting the breeze or pouring cans of spaghetti into someone's bunk. And Linus…was a thing unto himself and that was probably the most reassuring part about this whole mess, god or not. He might not have been the first person she'd call in this situation, but she was glad he was there.

Underneath all that, she seethed with anger. Most of it was directed at Oliver for doing this in the first place – she'd actually counted him as a friend, and friends don't eat other friends' faces – and part of it was at herself for getting into this mess. Next time she saw Ashley, she was going to punch the prom queen. It was probably a bad idea, but it would definitely make her feel better.

She splashed some water on her face to try to wipe away the burning and aching feeling that went with crying too much. While she wasn't ready to face the world, she also wasn't sure what to do next so this seemed as good a time as any to unlock the door and venture out. She could curl up and be miserable by herself anytime. Right then, she didn't want to be alone at all.

Linus was in the kitchen. He had a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other while he stared at his phone on the table. Fee half-smiled to herself as she thought that maybe he'd perfected the art of typing with his mind. He glanced up at her as she entered the room, but didn't say anything. The silence started to awkwardly stretch out and Fiona was at a loss as to how to stop it from getting any worse. This is exactly what happened as she poured herself a cup of coffee and grabbed a bread plate that he could use for an ashtray before she sat down opposite him.

"I'm not dead yet, you know." She said and pushed the plate toward him.

"I know." His shoulders slowly slumped.

"If this keeps being weird, I'll go lock myself in the bathroom again. I can be weird on my own."

"Don't." His voice was quiet, but there was a hard edge to it that belied his calm exterior. "Don't try to be flippant and shrug to show how okay you are with all this, because I know you, Fee, and I know you're not okay in the slightest."

"Good. Then you also know that I'm not just going to roll over and wait for the inevitable, nor am I going to mope and wail 'woe is me' everywhere." She said through clenched teeth. "How long do you think I have?"

"A couple of days, maybe. A week at best." Linus didn't sugar coat it and she appreciated that.

"You think we can find Oliver so I can kick his head in by then?"

He narrowed his eyes slightly and lifted his chin. "I don't know. I'm pretty sure he'll come to us. They're going to want you."

"Great." She wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and enjoyed how it was hot enough to make her fingertips tingle. "Let's not make it easy for them."

"It's not that simple. Oliver's the one that did this to you, so he's going to be the one that's inside your head. Which means that he's the one that's going to be watching what's going on, and in the end, he's the one that's going to be in charge. I can't tell you things because I don't want him to know." He said and hissed as his cigarette finally burned down to his fingers. He stubbed out on the plate and carefully wiped the ash off his hand so he could inspect the damage.

"Is this why Seth isn't coming?" Fiona tightened her grip on her mug to distract herself from the way her stomach lurched.

"No. Sort of." He said and wrinkled his nose. He picked at some skin on the side of his nail, pursed his lips and let out a frustrated sigh. "Seth's pissed that I took one of the trucks and Titus without permission. He made it abundantly clear that we're not welcome to return, with or without you."

She swallowed an indignant noise and the urge to snatch up the phone so she could yell at her brother about what the hell was wrong with him. Instead, she stared at Linus for a few heartbeats.

"You quit the tour for _me_?" Her voice came out a little squeaky.

"Well, yeah." Linus mumbled and was suddenly incredibly focused on his coffee mug. She stared a little bit more, unable to think of a suitable reply. They were friends and had a certain amount of history, but as far as she knew that was as far as it went. There was no secret – or not so secret – pining on her part, and while she liked to play _what if_ from time to time, she always came back to the conclusion that it never would have worked anyway. Not to mention, he never seemed very concerned by the state of their relationship or the lack of it.

"Huh?" It was the most eloquent thing she could manage.

"Oh come on, like it's really so shocking." He lifted his gaze back to her face. "You'd do the same for me, only without the wrath of your brother hanging over your head. Sometimes, I'm not a complete self-serving jerk. I hate getting told when I can't do something, so I'm going to go out and prove that I can. Case in point: I found you."

This was confusing in that it was the least cryptic conversation she'd ever had with him. At least she remembered to blink.

"I think we're having a moment. This is a moment, right?" Fiona asked.

One corner of his mouth lifted in a tiny smile. "Yeah, this is a moment. And we're having one. It's weird."

"I know. I never thought we'd be having a moment, let alone one like this. Where do we go from here? I mean, do we talk about our feelings or have violent sex on the table or..." she trailed off and made a face.

Linus arched one of his eyebrows as he mulled it over. "We could do both. Not at the same time, because that never works out well. But it would still be weird."

"Now I feel obligated to put my life through a retrospective to try and figure out how this even happened. We had our thing, and it was a good thing, but it didn't last and that's okay. I have no idea where we go from here." She finished and huffed out a loud sigh. The silence returned as they stared at each other across the table and drank coffee.

Eventually, Linus set his mug aside and picked up his phone. "I don't know what's supposed to happen next either, but I have an idea on where we can start."

"Oh?" Fiona was running out of ideas and regretted that she couldn't just flip through a mental montage to some indie pop song to figure out how her life in this world got to this point. It would have been really helpful. Maybe she could ask Ashley about that after she punched her in the face.

"You can help me board up windows." He replied. That wasn't the answer she was hoping for, but it would have to do.

*

  
Morning rolled around and Fiona was still very much stuck in this world. On top of that, she was sore in places she didn't even know that she had thanks to lugging furniture most of the night, her eyes burned in the dim light, her skull felt like the bones were grinding against each other, and her throat felt like sandpaper. After they'd called it a night, she had fallen asleep next to Linus with her head propped on his shoulder and his leg hooked around hers. It was the kind of comfortable that happened after spending a lot of time with each other. This is why it was a surprise to wake up and find Titus draped over Linus in a similar way.

She managed to extricate herself from them and stumbled to the bathroom to give herself a Dracula check. Her jaw and gums ached like she'd been grinding her teeth all night. There were bumps over her canines and if she poked her fingernail at the right angle, she could feel the hard edge of a tooth coming through. The bite on her neck also looked worse; the bruise was a rainbow of dark colours against her skin and had spread beyond the bite area. One side of the wound had scabbed over, the other side looked red and inflamed and while it was tender to touch, it didn't feel hot. As soon as one of the guys was awake, she'd have to ask was up with that. Outside of a movie frame of reference, she had no idea how this even worked.

It didn't happen for a while, as after breakfast it was right back to reinforcing the house. It was kinda funny to see Linus doing some actual work instead of directing them or making himself busy with something minor that didn't involve heavy lifting. And since she'd noticed how him and Titus were curled up against each other in the morning, it was getting difficult not to notice the little things that went on between them, too. Around mid-afternoon, everything fell apart when Fee had to go puke her guts out. To her surprise, Titus was the one to come and check on her. He didn't say anything as he held her hair back and let her retch. As the worst of the nausea started to subside, she wondered if he did this for Alex and Oliver, too. But she didn't ask. Her mind kept flashing back to how angry he'd been the previous night and she didn't want to ruin this...whatever it was.

"Thanks?" she said, her voice rough and croaky. "You don't have to do this."

"I know." He got her a glass of water and helped hold a damp cloth to the back of her neck. It didn't make her feel better, just clammy.

"So, you and Linus, huh?" Fiona asked and smiled when she saw him blush. "It's okay. I just didn't know exactly where I fit in with all this. I mean, he and I used to have a thing, but it's not like it was set in stone and after last night's talk I'm more confused than ever."

"He does that." Titus smiled briefly, but it was sad. "When it comes to previous relationships and reactions to them, I'm not the best guy for that. Besides, you're not like them." He shrugged and rubbed the back of his head with one hand. "I don't know where you fit in either, but it's not going to be for long. I kinda wish it was longer. I never really got to know you that well and you always seemed cool."

"Oh, on the topic of my impending mortality," she pulled her t-shirt away from her neck to show him the bite. "You mind telling me why only one side is all puffy and gross?"

"Maybe you struggled when you got bit?" He gingerly touched the edge of the wound. She flinched and hissed softly.

"That's just it, I didn't fight. _Vampires_ , Titus. Screaming and flailing doesn't get anyone anywhere."

He scowled at her. "I thought you said last night that he told you to run? For sport."

"That was _after_ Oliver bit me." She closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her hands to her temples as she tried to remember. "I don't know, maybe front on is not the prime biting position and he wanted to get a better one to finish me off. I read a book that explained it's easier to bite someone from behind and keep them subdued."

"Shit." Titus said and she could hear him move away from her. " _Shit._ I think I know what happened, why this is happening so fast. This is just like when Seth turned Donna. I think Oliver injected you with his own blood in the bite wound in the hopes that we'd miss it – which we did – and take you back to camp so we'd be leading them right to us."

She finally put two and two together. "Only he didn't count on you quitting the tour. So it's just the three of us against..." She trailed off with a shiver as she remembered feeling the pull through the various people in that town and beyond. There were a lot of vampires out there.

"Two of us. You're not going to get any better, Fee. And we still have to get through the night..." Titus' voice faded away. That feeling inside her that connected her to Oliver wasn't just a memory; she could feel it stretched tight between them. He was in a dark room, and Alex was there. They'd been feeding. They needed to be at their peak for tonight when they headed away from the safety of the town. They wanted to gorge themselves now, but Oliver held himself back. His teeth ached at the prospect of tasting Titus again. Fiona could feel the blood on his mouth and mingled with the scent of fear in the air, how it burned down his throat and warmed his flesh. A strangled moan escaped her throat, and she felt him look toward the window.

 _He knew she was there._

A chill broke out over her skin as she felt him push back. He was going to flood into her brain and then...puzzlement. Like when he was feeding on her, Oliver couldn't needle his way into her mind. She could feel him frown and consider trying again, only Alex pulled him to her and his thoughts turned to more immediate things, like the way her hands slid against his chest and the taste of her mouth.

"Fee!" Titus' voice was loud and right in front of her. She was suddenly aware of his hands on either side of her face as he gave her a small shake. She let her hands drop to her lap and she blinked up at him, startled to be back in the bathroom. "You with me?"

"I think so?" Her voice refused to work.

"What did you see?"

"They're coming tonight." Fee pulled his hand away from her face and twisted his watch around so she could look at the time. Sunset was still hours away and she was certain there was still a hell of a lot of work to do. "And Oliver can't get into my head."

Titus looked like he didn't know if he ought to be confused or surprised. "That's not possible."

"It's not for a lack of trying on his part. I don't understand, Candy can read me just fine." The taste of blood still lingered in her mouth and stuck to the back of her throat. Fiona felt queasy as her stomach growled. She eased Titus' hands away from her face and took a sip of water. It didn't help.

He sat down on the floor near her and rubbed his face. "All I can think is that the vampire that attacked Alex wasn't made right. Maybe whatever messed him up is screwing with you? I don't know."

"Don't hurt your head trying to figure it out." She told him. "We've got a lot of work to do before the sun goes down. And I'm going to keep helping until I fall down, so don't even think about telling me to sit it out or take it easy. I want to get through the night every bit as much as you do."

Titus smiled, but it was shaky. "I don't know how much I want to do that." He said softly and glanced at the door. "It's Alex and Oliver, and I don't react rationally when they're involved."

"It's a good thing we've got Linus around to help us keep our heads." She reached out to give his shoulder a small squeeze. He did a good job of seeming calm, but she could feel him tremble under her hand. His smile grew a little and he leaned into her until they were shoulder to shoulder in a loose hug. Fiona still felt terrible, but the tightness in her chest eased. They were quiet together for a few more minutes, and then it was back to work.

*

  
About an hour later, Titus cut his arm on a nail. Blood went everywhere. Fee broke a tooth licking it off the wall. Linus dragged her down into the basement, where it was cool and dark.

"It'll be over soon." He said as he pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. "One way, or another."

"Is that supposed to be comforting or a promise?" She rasped. Her voice was completely gone and it was hard to breathe, but at the same time she could feel _everything_. Every piece of grit under her hands, taste the dust in the air, she could see the ants crawling out of a crack in the wall on the far side of the room, and still hear Titus stomping around upstairs. If she concentrated hard enough, she could hear the throbbing of his heartbeat. Linus was like a steady bass booming right in her ear.

"It just is." He combed her hair away from her face and tapped the end of her nose with one slender finger.

"Then why does it sound like a goodbye?" She swallowed tightly and tasted her own blood. Her teeth tingled with the need to tear into something.

"It's not. It won't be." He spoke as though the very act of saying it would make it so. "I'm not giving up on you, Fee."

She wished she had courage in his conviction as she huddled under the blanket, her skin cold and clammy. She could feel the warmth in his skin and deep down she knew that she'd never be warm like that again. "Then you should go help Titus."

"I'll see you on the other side." He leaned over and kissed her forehead. She got to smell the lingering scent of cigarettes that clung to his clothes, his skin, and beneath that the blood that pounded through his veins. She drew back and chewed on the edge of the blanket to try and hold onto what was left of her sanity. Linus pursed his lips and looked a little wounded, but took this as his cue to go. He paused by the door and turned back toward her. "You know, everyone else is a moment; there, and then they're gone and I don't feel like I missed out on anything. I'm pretty sure we missed something when we went our separate ways."

"What about Titus?" Fee poked her hand out from under the blanket and pointed to the ceiling.

"I don't know. Some moments last lifetimes."

Fee hugged herself and was completely unsure how to reply to that. She didn't know if she was meant to. He smiled, hesitant and sad, and closed the door before she could fathom an answer. She heard him linger for a few long heartbeats. And then he walked away.

*

  
By nightfall, Fiona was going out of her mind. Everything hurt to the point where she wasn't sure if she accidentally injured herself. She'd cut her hand open when she traced the perimeter of the basement in her search for a way out and didn't notice until she saw the blood stain her jeans and drip on the ground. And then she spent a few more minutes hungrily licking at the wound. A little while later, she pulled her other canine tooth out and sighed with relief as her new fang slid into place, which set off another round of hysterical crying.

 _She was turning into a fucking vampire!_

As if it wasn't bad enough on its own, whatever it was that let her feel and see Oliver earlier randomly came back online. She could track his progress all the way from the town to the farmhouse as he followed the pull toward her. It was weird to feel her fingers tear into the front door, feel anxiety for Alex as she ran as to draw Titus' shooting as a diversion, and still be curled up on the basement floor with feverish shivers.

"Stop dying." Ashley told her as she sat down on the edge of a crate. She spent a few moments arranging her tattered skirt so it sat neatly around her. "I mean it. Just stop."

The way she said it, like it was something that could be stopped by flipping a switch made Fiona laugh. Her throat burned and her mouth was dry, so it sounded more like a painful wheeze.

"Why is it so hard to understand? Stop dying, child." A note of impatience entered Ashley's voice and she frowned.

"Cut the bullshit." Fee hissed through her teeth. "You're not Ashley. If you're going to talk to me, let's be honest and do it face to face."

"That's assuming I have one." Ashley rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to say something else, but a strangled, pained sound came out instead. She nearly doubled over and she clutched her stomach, shaking violently. Then she jerked upright and stared at the ceiling. The angle of her neck made the wound on her throat gape wide, far enough for Fiona to see the slick white of bones. And something was moving in there. It wasn't the black goo from before, this was pale and distinctly had joints...

"Oh, holy _crap!_ " Fiona swore as she recognised _fingers_ as they poked through the slash. A whole hand pushed its way out of Ashley's neck and judging by the gurgling noises she made and the bugle in her throat, a second hand was quick to follow. The hands curled around the stretched edges of the wound and pulled to tear Ashley apart like a paper doll. In her place sat a woman, naked except for a veil that was wrapped around her dark hair and curled over her shoulder. What was left of Ashley started to sizzle and melt into dark goo at her feet.

"This isn't how it's supposed to be." The woman spoke and thousands of voices came pouring out of her mouth, all of them belonging to her. She laughed, cried, screamed, moaned, whispered, and so many more things that Fee probably did not have words for, but she could _feel_ the subtle nuances. If her head didn't already feel like it was sliding apart, then her teeth would be swimming as she tried to process the sounds. "You see?" The woman said with a sad smile. "So fragile. I wished for a familiar face in order to communicate with you, but it is difficult to maintain. So many things are more difficult than they should be."

She looked at Fee, or Fee thought she did, it was hard to tell. The woman didn't have eyes, just black holes where they ought to be. Fee focused on her red mouth, unwilling to meet her gaze. She swallowed thickly and mustered what little voice she could. "Who the hell are you?"

"Night. I used to be known as Nyx in this world. Your kind are so quick to forget these things." A warm, rolling amusement went through her voices while the puddle of goo that used to be Ashley sizzled as it oozed into a shaft of moonlight. Fiona could see tendrils of the stuff branching out toward the shadows, seeking…something. She edged her feet back as far as she could. She didn't want to know what would happen if any got on her.

The name was familiar and Fee fought through the feverish haze that reduced most of her brain to soft spaghetti to try to make sense of it. She was pretty sure it'd come up in a previous conversation, but there was that nagging feeling that she knew it from elsewhere, too. The realisation was like a slap to the face.

"Why is a goddess talking to me?" Her breath left her in a sharp hiss as she tried to quash her panic. _A goddess_ , for fuck's sake.

Nyx frowned. "Was I not clear?"

"Not clear at all. Plus I was drunk when you turned up the first couple of times. And as you point out, I'm _dying_ right now." To hell with Candy's advice to not antagonise the big scary thing. Fee was at the literal end of her tether, so she figured that a goddess wouldn't begrudge her being direct. "I just want to go home to my world."

When Nyx spoke, most of her voices were in a soft, perplexed murmur. "That isn't possible, yet. I cannot hold onto these worlds to stop them from slipping into the Void and sift through the threads to find yours. And the more I interfere, the harder it is to keep them stable. No, you will be returned once the balance is restored."

"Then how do I do that?"

Nyx regarded her silently for a heartbeat and almost smiled. "Linus. You have noticed, yes? He is not himself in this world, or any other. You need to remind him. I'd do it myself, but the moment I speak his true name, it will be devoured and lost forever more."

Fiona could slip back into hysterical crying again. "I tried that! She didn't believe me when I asked if she was a god. And I haven't exactly had much time to bring up the topic this time around!"

"You will. I have faith." Nyx gracefully got to her feet and began to unwind her veil from her hair. "There is a piece of me inside of you. It will keep you safe."

Fee didn't feel particularly safe. From above, there was a loud crash and the sound of frantic footsteps before a deafening boom that made the entire house shudder. Inside her head, she could feel fire curl and lick at the walls as glass and debris rained down around her. She briefly caught sight of Titus, his hands engulfed by flames as he guided the blaze right at Oliver. A cool, gentle touch jarred Fee out of the scene and suddenly she was back in the basement. Nyx stood beside her and combed Fiona's hair out of her face. "Shhh, child. It's all right." The goddess cooed. "Just this once, I shall ease your passing."

That sounded ominous. Fiona barely managed a squeak of protest as Nyx threw her veil over her like a blanket. She felt something silky brush against her skin before a bone-aching chill shot through her veins, and the world disappeared into the darkness of Nyx's eyes.

*

  
Fiona fell through the vast emptiness of space. There were no stars, no sounds, just an unending blackness and the pull of gravity. She panicked that maybe she'd wind up falling for eternity and that was somehow worse than imagining what it'd be like to hit something.

Maybe it was a trick of her imagination but she finally saw a pinprick of light far below her. The tiny gold glow got bigger. She couldn't figure out if it was because she fell toward it, or it moved closer to her. But with the light came the revelation of _something_ in the dark with her. It was huge, and she caught a glimpse of a great maw open and hungry with row after row of jagged teeth.

And it moved toward her a hell of a lot faster than she fell. A huge tentacle snaked out toward her and she felt something cold and wet on her skin moments before she hit –

*

  
Fiona was suddenly in bed, surrounded by cool satin sheets. It felt slippery and weird against her skin, and, to her horror, she realised she was naked. A quiet snore beside her let her know that she wasn't alone. She glanced over her shoulder as far as she dared so as not to disturb her bedfellow and could only dimly make out the line of a back and a nice naked ass. This wasn't helpful. She took a deep breath and told herself that it was just the morning after the night before and all she had to do was stay quiet as she figured out where her clothes went. Even if this was her bedroom in this world and the naked stranger beside her didn't go away, a bit of alone time would help her figure out what was going on.

She slipped out of bed as carefully as she could and winced as she nearly put her foot through a champagne glass that was lying on the floor. She stumbled around the room to pick her clothes up from the floor (and the lamp, and the expensive looking vase, and she had no idea how her shoe wound up on top of the dresser) and got dressed. While she hunted for her other shoe, she found a clutch under the edge of the bed and a quick inspection confirmed that it was hers. It was that moment that the sleeper chose to stir and Fee had to duck or else get smacked in the face as he stuck his foot out over the edge of the mattress. She backed off as quietly as she could manage, found her other shoe along the way, and used the dresser to help pull herself to her feet. She was in the middle of checking herself over to see if she'd missed any items of clothing or jewellery when she finally got a good look at her bedfellow. Her tongue went dry and she had to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep down an indignant squawk as she realised that she'd spent the night with _Dirk._

On the one hand, Fee wanted to smack herself. It wasn't so much that Dirk was a bad person, more that he was... _Dirk_. He was decent enough under the layers of ego and sexual innuendo, but getting there was tough. She was pretty sure that if she stuck around long enough for him to wake up, he'd try to go another round and since she wasn't the Fiona that had been there last night...uh, that would just make things really awkward. Besides, she was pretty sure he could cope with being the object of a one night stand. He always had Ash to keep him company on the days he struck out.

She used the elevator ride down from the penthouse to put on her shoes and check her reflection in the dark mirrored walls. She had a hickey where her vampire bite had been, her hair was mussed, she was covered in body glitter, and she had panda-eyes, but it would have to do. It was a pleasant surprise to emerge into a hotel lobby and to get swept up in a gaggle of morning traffic all the way out the doors and onto the street. Her stomach sank as she took in the unfamiliar skyline. Great, now she had no idea where she was. This wasn't unusual, after touring long enough, time and cities sort of blurred together. A cab came as she checked her clutch for clues. There was a slightly awkward delay as she dug out her driver's licence and gave the address on there.

Her building reminded her more like her brother's place after they both left college – a converted parking garage, with an equal mix of free-thinking artistic types and high powered executives. Names on the buzzers said she lived on the top floor. It took an almost embarrassing amount of time to fumble through her keys to find the right one to the door before she could get in the building and again into her own apartment.

It was a little surreal being in a place that she lived in but had never really seen before. At least in this world, she still liked zombie movies and had classic posters up on her walls. The cat that almost came up to her knee as it padded over to her and headbutted her shin was new.

"Ow, Jesus." She swore and tottered in her heels, but reached down to give the cat a rub along its back. It arched under her touch and purred like it had an engine in its throat. After a couple more pats, it lost interest in her and wandered toward the kitchen. She kicked off her shoes and started to open doors to try and find her bedroom so she could get out of this dress and get rid of the glitter. The last thing she wanted to do was sparkle everywhere like some kind of Christmas ornament.

Her room was more familiar than the rest of the place, with scattered clothes and CDs over every available surface. She was in the middle of hunting down an unrumpled, unstained t-shirt when the beeping started. She checked her phone, and that wasn't it, and it wasn't her computer or alarm clock. It sounded like it came from her _closet._

Fee pulled open the door and saw most of her clothes in their dry-cleaning plastic wraps. The beeping was definitely coming from in here, and unless Narnia had developed an early warning system, she couldn't see where. She parted her suits and stared at a blank wall. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a tiny blinking light near the top of the closet. She had to stretch to reach it, but her fingers felt the bump of a button. She pressed it, something quietly hissed, and the back of the closet slid open to a whole other room. There were an array of monitors that covered the building and other areas of the city, a section dedicated to gadgetry and plans of some kind, and a dark full body suit standing proud in one corner.

"I'm _Batman_." Fiona swore and reached out to touch the flashing screen. A couple of dark figures made their way over what looked like a rooftop and crept down over the fire escape. The beeping stopped as soon as she touched the screen and the view changed to a better angle of the intruders as they made their way down toward a window on the top floor. One of them juggled a bag as he pulled out something that looked like a giant suction cup and attached it to the glass. One of the other screens in front of her switched to a view of her living room, which looked the same as before except now there were a couple of silhouettes against the frosted glass near the fire escape.

They were breaking into _her_ place? She looked back over her shoulder toward her room. Her phone was on the bed. A glance back at the monitor showed that the intruders would be inside any moment now. She probably didn't have enough time to grab the phone and lock herself inside her Batcave. She made the decision to exit the room and close the panels in her closet behind her, grab her phone to call the police, and hope like mad she still kept a baseball bat under her bed. The Fee of this world may well have been Batman, but she wasn't here right now. Fiona really hoped that nobody knew about her secret identity and that she didn't have an arch-nemesis like the Joker lurking out there.

Sure enough, the bat was in easy reach. She carefully pulled it out with one hand and dialled 911 with the other. But her thumb hesitated on the call button and the more she looked at it, the less she could bring herself to push it. She might not be the Bat-Fiona of this world, but she wasn't entirely useless either. She'd fought zombies and drunk people. While there was a distinct probability that the bad guys could be armed – which is something that frankly terrified her to the point of wanting to stay curled up on the floor and avoid everything – she was also at the point of being fed up with just going with the flow. She'd done that in two worlds already and it got her a hangover and being turned into a vampire. Who knew what would happen this time around if she actually did something for herself?

She gripped the bat with one hand and snuck over to the door to use the camera on the phone to see what the bad guys were doing. Both of them wore ski masks, so she couldn't get a decent photo for later. She took a few anyway, just in case either the police or her secret lair could do something with them. One of the guys was at her shelves and pulled books and movies out by the armful to clatter on the floor, the other had just disturbed the cat and kicked it aside. They looked like they were searching for something. Fee scrolled through her phone functions and silently thanked her alternate self for being a big enough geek to network all her devices. She could access the mp3 player docked into the stereo, scrolled until she found the loudest piece of thrash metal she could recognise, turned the volume up and hit play.

The noise that exploded through the speakers made all the windows shudder and Fiona could feel the reverb right through her gut. A glance down through the camera again showed both the intruders looking for the source of the noise. One of them had his hands clamped over his ears as he stumbled across the living room while the other was more practical and started to yank out the visible speakers. Fee tucked her phone down the front of her dress, took a solid grip on her bat and ran out to face the bad guys. She was probably only going to have one shot at this, so she'd better make it count.

She got to the guy destroying her speakers first and swung the bat at the back of his leg. His knee buckled and he stumbled with a startled sound that was mostly drowned out by shredding guitars. She swung again, this time at his shoulder to help knock him down to the ground. Or that's how it went in theory if he didn't kick her in the shin as he fell, so she missed and nearly lost her balance. He recovered enough to take a swipe at her, to try and grab the bat away, but left himself open for an elbow to the face.

His partner finally pulled out the stereo and the noise died, right as the first guy made a horrendous gurgling sound. The second guy turned around with a shout and tilted his head to one side. "Are you trying to _dazzle_ me? You're fucking sparkling." He spoke in a gruff voice and started to laugh. Fiona hefted the baseball bat and focused on the guy she'd already hit. She was very much aware of how glittery she was in the sunlight; she didn't need anyone else to point it out for her. Watching her try to beat up his partner only made the other guy laugh harder.

He stopped laughing when she changed grips on the bat and jabbed him in the throat with the tip. The weight felt off in her hands, but the principle was the same. Deep down in her gut, she knew she could win this fight. Maybe this is what Nyx meant by there being a part of her inside Fee and it would keep her safe.

The first guy knocked her to one side and the bat fell from her hands. It skittered away under the couch. At least it was out of everyone's reach. Fee clawed forward to grab one of her stilettos. She swung it blindly and the guy that had tackled her howled in pain and started to tug the ski mask off his face. Blood dripped down through his fingers. She kicked at him and scrambled to her feet just in time to avoid getting hit by her stereo that had been thrown by the other guy. She wasn't fast enough to avoid his lunge and got the wind knocked out of her when he punched her in the ribs.

After that, the fight became less scrappy. Fee threw everything she could at the guy and surprised herself with a few moves. She didn't have time to think, just act. She saw an opportunity to hit the guy, and she took it. He got a couple more lucky punches in, but she finally got him in a chokehold.

And then the entire room exploded with light. It burned her eyes and she had to let go in order to shield her face. She squinted through her fingers and vaguely made out a bright form cross the room to punch the guy in the face. The bad guy went down and his partner soon followed.

"Are you okay?" The voice was familiar.

"Dirk?" She asked and tried again to peek through her fingers. The light started to dim and yeah, it was Dirk. Dirk in a glittering silver jumpsuit that was open almost do the waist to show off his well-muscled torso, and matching domino mask. Little rainbows bounced off his skin from where it the light hit it. Suddenly the glitter on her skin made much more sense.

He smiled at her, flashing dimples and perfect white teeth. "I got here just in the nick of time."

Fee swallowed her indignation that maybe she had this before he showed up. Instead, she said, "Did you follow me home?"

"Well, yeah. I'm supposed to be protecting you from guys like these." He gestured to the bad guys slumped on the floor. "It's a bit hard to do that at the hotel when you're not there." He curled his hands around her shoulders, lightly massaging. "I should take you back there and give you a thorough going over. Just to be sure that you're really okay." He leaned down as though to kiss her. She turned her face away and he kissed her jaw. Not to be discouraged, he started to nuzzle his way down her neck.

She put a hand to his chest and pushed back. "No, Dirk, you don't get to vajazzle me again." It was her turn to point to the bad guys. "Especially not right now."

He briefly looked disappointed. "But you're not saying no indefinitely." He slid his hands down her back and settled them on her hips. This was the moment that her boobs started to beep. It was the same beeping that had come from her closet before the bad guys showed up. "Uhh..." He looked down at her chest.

Fee pulled her phone out of her dress to see someone else moving on the fire escape. She looked up just as a person dressed in dark clothes pulled a gun out of their jacket. She wrapped her arms around Dirk and flung herself to the ground to drag him down with her as bullets zinged overhead.

Dirk landed on top of her with a grin that trembled around the edges. "Now this is what I call life affirming. But was that meant for me, or for you? Because if it was for you, then the cat's out of the bag and someone other than me knows that you're Viperia. This is why you can't go sneaking off like that. We have to watch each other's backs."

"Get off me, Dirk. And so help me, if you counter with an offer to get me off instead, next time I will use you as a meat shield." She said flatly.

Before he could say anything else or the earth opened up to swallow her whole, the police burst in through her front door. Ash was one of the detectives and looked relieved to see Dirk. "Captain Dazzle!"

 _Captain Dazzle_. Fiona took this opportunity to extricate herself from Dirk and go retrieve her cat. She would never be able to look Dirk in the eye and keep a straight face, no matter what universe she was in.

"I've been trying to get in contact with you," Ash pulled Dirk off to the side, but stayed close enough for Fiona to overhear what they were talking about. "The order came through this morning. We're moving Bergstrom in preparation for his trial."

Her cat perked up on her behalf and smacked her in the chin with its tail. Ash passed Dirk a USB drive. "This is the route that we're taking. A lot of the city's finest are going to be out there, but it's just not the same after Porter got shot. I'd feel better knowing that you've got our backs."

"I thought the trial wasn't going to be for a few more weeks?" Dirk looked over Ash's shoulder, directly at Fee. She caught his eye for half a second and started to fiddle with her phone.

"Yeah, but I guess something came up. The request came from the judge in the middle of the night." Ash replied. "I'll keep you informed. Now, I gotta do my job."

"And I have to do mine." Dirk squared off his shoulders and posed like he was on the cover of a comic book. He blew Fee a kiss. "I brought my library card, so I'll be sure to check you out."

She fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Before you go, Captain Dazzle, can I get a photo with you so I can tell all my friends how I was so heroically saved?" She held up her phone and smiled hopefully.

"It is the least I can do." He leaned down over the couch and planted a wet one on her cheek. "Seriously, though, I'll be waiting outside," he whispered while she snapped a couple of pictures. "As soon as they're gone, we can work on this." He slid the USB drive down her top. This was groping for great justice?

He made a dramatic exit in a burst of rainbow sparkles and Fee was left to give her statement to Ash. He asked her if there was anywhere she could stay, given that heroes were a target in this city and she had been seen publically with Dirk – who apparently was well known as Captain Dazzle, so she immediately started to make mental comparisons to Tony Stark –hence why she was in danger. She went with his theory and explained that this was the only reason why she was home, to pick up some things and get her cat (as if on cue, the cat gave Ash the biggest disarming kitty eyes ever) before heading back to the hotel. He offered to give her a police escort, but she declined by pointing out that Dirk would be back and he was just as good as any escort. If he had super hearing, she hoped he was proud of the innuendo.

Eventually, she was allowed to head back into her room to pack her bags. She threw one duffle on the bed and crammed in as many clothes as she could, then headed to her lair to see what she could pack up in there. It looked like the suit and gadgets fit into their own case, and there was a portable unit for the mainframe that looked just like a laptop. She used her phone to take photos of her planning board, and dragged the case out. It took some fumbling around in the closet to figure out a locking mechanism and at last the door gave a reassuring click shut and her phone bleeped to indicate that the security protocols were now in place. Fiona really could get to like this superhero business if it meant she got to mess with cool toys like these.

True to his word, Dirk returned. She wasn't sure if the shiny suit was any better than the sparkly costume, but it was _Dirk_. He was like glam personified. If nothing else, she could admire his dedication to the aesthetic.

Once back at the hotel, she finally got to have her goddamned shower. No matter how much she scrubbed, she still sparkled all over. It was getting to the point where she felt like everything she did ought to be accompanied by ethereal wind chimes. She also had enough quiet time, while Dirk was off doing a public appearance, to quickly Google what the hell was going on here with heroes being targeted and immediately got a series of articles by Titus Casey. He'd written the story of the year when he pieced together a string of seemingly random deaths to costumed identities. It looked like Linus got caught up in the investigation, his cover of Neobeserker was blown when Lieutenant Alexandra Porter was fatally shot, and he was arrested for manslaughter and vigilantism. His trial was going to be a landmark case to see if heroes could be prosecuted for deaths that happened as a result of their intervention in the law and order process. Her eyes glazed over at the legalese, but the general idea was not exactly encouraging for others to come forth and out their alter egos. Out of curiosity, she also looked up herself and was fairly impressed with her exploits. She'd have to remember them so she could pitch them to her brother as an idea for a comic.

The photos from the planning board outlined a prison break. She was going to guess that it was for Linus. She had a schedule of guards and a map of their rotations with indicators for cameras and their field of view. There was a clear path with a small window of opportunity to get into the prison without being seen to get him out. With the news Ash gave Dirk, and the USB drive she was now scrolling through, the entire plan was moot because Linus was getting moved. This looked to be the perfect opportunity to get to him. The thing that played at the back of her head was that it also meant he was a sitting duck for whoever was out there killing heroes. So was she and Dirk holed up in the hotel, especially since everyone knew that both Linus and Dirk fought crime. Whether she was a target purely by association or someone knew her secret identity was unclear, but she didn't want to sit around to find out. Regardless of who the target was, if all of them were in one spot, at least then whoever was responsible was guaranteed to show up. Dirk was right about one thing; they had to watch each other's backs.

While she was at it, she set up the lair computer to do a search for Nyx and her contemporaries. If Linus and Nyx were in any way associated, she was going to find out what it was and see if that helped her with her situation. He'd been frustratingly vague about exactly what kind of god he was, but he did mention something about shadows. Going by his name and how he could pronounce places in Norway without a phonetic guide, she was going to guess he was more at home with a Nordic pantheon than the classic Greco-Roman one where Nyx came from. This was a good starting point. If she was watching, Fee hoped Nyx would be proud that she could multitask her mission to save the universe and be a superhero.

*

  
The plan was not a great one, but it was the best she could come up with on short notice; follow the prison transport, deal with any bad guys that may show up, and spring Linus before they got to the courthouse lockup. Also, try not to _die_. Fiona shuddered as she remembered falling and that thing with teeth. She had no desire to repeat the experience.

Dirk covered the first leg of the transport from the jail into the city. Fee stayed in place along the route and kept checking her GPS to make sure she was in the right spot to try and fend off the flip-flopping in her stomach that alternated between excitement and nerves. On the one hand, she really loved her superhero outfit. It looked like a stifling bodysuit, but it turned out to have a synthetic weave that stored and transferred kinetic energy. Every time she moved, it helped power the suit and with a press of a button she could activate it to move faster and punch harder. The first time she put it on, she grinned and twirled before she struck a pose. The costume looked a bit like Nightwing's, only with a red V across her chest and shoulders. He was her favourite Robin and even if Batman didn't exist in this world, maybe her fannish enthusiasm bled through the dimensions to the Fiona that lived here. She had a mask that looked like it belonged with a dominatrix play set, but since it kept her head covered and had diagnostics in the eyepieces so she could survey even the deepest of shadows, she wasn't going to complain. The best surprise of poking around her lair computer was that she found out she had a sweet motorcycle stashed at a safehouse. It handled like a dream so far and she was looking forward to putting it through some of its paces tonight.

"Fee, I've got a problem," Dirk's voice came in crystal clear through the earpiece.

"What is it?" She asked and tapped into the traffic cameras around his signal.

"The road's blocked with a burst water main. The motorcade has to detour and if I know my traffic, they're going to completely bypass your location. You'd better get here, now."

"I'm locked on you and on my way." Fiona slotted her phone into the custom dock on the bike and gunned the engine.

The diagnostics lit up with directions and distance to target. In this unfamiliar city, it helped her weave the labyrinthine streets but she knew she was putting a hell of a lot of faith in her computer. At any moment, she was going to fuck up and crash and wind up splattered on the road like a crash test dummy. She wondered if the Fee of this world had the same gnawing doubts whenever she rode out into the night to bust bad guy faces. As if on cue, her ribs gave a twinge and there was a tightness in her chest. Only one of those things was from the fight in her apartment.

Her nerves swung back toward excitement when she took a short cut through the lower level of a mall to the adjacent train station. Some kids waved and made fangs with their fingers as she zipped toward the edge of the platform. The thrill was enough to get her through the tunnel in almost pitch-black darkness. She was pretty sure the computer would let her know if a train was coming, but she kept replaying death scenes from _Tomb Raider_ through her head until she came out on the overpass. The dots on the GPS were almost lined up and a quick glance over her shoulder showed the motorcade headed toward the bridge. Something definitely wasn't right; there weren't enough police car escorts and the one in the lead had a cracked windshield.

"Fee, you'd better be coming soon!" Dirk sounded like he spoke between gritted teeth. Behind the motorcade was a blinding flash of light that shattered into rainbows and twinkled gently down to the street.

"I'm right on top of you." She screeched to a halt and hoped there wasn't a train due in either direction as she activated the bike's guns to shoot out the barrier. The tires smoked as she revved for the jump, but then came pure exhilaration as she shot forward and sailed through the air as the convoy passed beneath her. She landed on the prison van with a jolt and kept the forward brake on to skid around to face the rear. From here, she could target anyone that got too close. Her immediate attention went to a dark SUV that rammed one of the police cars into the bridge pylon.

" _Fee, look out!_ " Dirk shouted in her ear. Anything else he might have said was lost in the roar of an explosion. The van swerved and it took everything she had to keep her balance on the bike as she swept past fire and smoke.

"Say again?" She frantically scrolled through diagnostics to reacquire the target as her vision swam in and out of focus.

"There's a helicopter. I thought it was the press. It looks like they've got a grenade launcher."

" _Shit_." Fee swore through clenched teeth as the van took another deadly swerve. "I can't stay up here."

"I'll take the chopper, you deal with the cars." She could almost hear the grin in Dirk's voice moments before he flew past her with a wave and a wake of rainbow sparkles. The SUV she'd been trying to track swiped at another police car and swerved to ram the corner of the van. She hoped that the van stayed steady enough as she revved the motorcycle's engine and shot forward. There was a satisfying crunch as the bike landed hard on the windshield and crumpled part of the roof. It was hell on the suspension, but worth it as she hit the road and turned just in time to see the car spin out and hit a lamp post. She barely got to savour it when a Town Car came screeching straight at her. There wasn't enough time to decide if this was a game of chicken; she sped after the transport van and locked onto the Town Car to keep an eye on it.

She didn't have to wait long for it to make its move. She'd barely caught her breath when it pulled up near her, the rear passenger window shattered in a spray of gunfire, and the car swerved in an attempt to take her out. Her knee almost scraped the ground as she weaved out of the way and struggled to keep balance on the bike. The bad guys must have noticed because the car took another feint toward her and this time clipped the side of the bike. Suddenly her sweet ride that was meant to help her save the day was turned into something she had to fight to control or risk a high speed death. The game went on – just as she managed to right herself, the car would swoop in or shots would be fired and she'd have to wrestle to stay upright. Finally, an opportunity showed itself where she could dart in front of the car, laying low as she could just in case the bullets kept coming, and deploy the explosive caltrops.

The car hit the charges just as the road ahead of the van exploded. The asphalt mushroomed up, thick chunks of it shooting through the air, and suddenly she was hit by the force of the blast. The prison van fishtailed and veered away. She couldn't keep up. She finally lost her battle with the bike and skidded through the flames and smoke. The motorcycle struck something and she and it went off in different directions. Something hit her mask and pain shot through her temple as she slid on the ground. It was all she could do to try and brace herself for the inevitable, sickening impact. If she was lucky, maybe she'd pass out before it happened.

Instead, Fiona came to a gentle stop in the middle of a flowerbed. She groggily sat and pulled her mask away. One eyepiece was cracked, and there was a piece of metal embedded across the cheek. If she hadn't been wearing that thing, this would have been her head. Through the haze from the explosion, she could see that this was one of the squares in the middle of the city. The transport had been so close! It was near the abstract art fountain in the centre of the area. Behind it, a helicopter touched down and a couple of men in ski masks ran across the grass toward the van.

Fee touched her temple, mostly to make sure that the domino mask she had on was still in place. She winced as she felt a cut near her hairline and again as her glove looked sticky under the streetlight. It would be nice to go through one universe without getting a head injury. "Get up, Fee." She told herself and stumbled to her feet. The world tilted this way and that, but slowly settled once she got herself upright.

Her lungs burned as she made her way across the square. It didn't look like the bad guys had noticed her. They were too busy setting up equipment to break open the back doors. She slunk around toward the driver's side to find both the driver and support officer slumped in their seats. It was awkward climbing up the wheel recess to reach through the broken window to pull them both up, but at least she found out they were both still breathing. After a bit of fiddling, she grabbed a couple of grenades from the support officer's bandolier, climbed back to the ground, and edged around the van far enough to toss them at the helicopter. They didn't have to hit, just go off close enough to the chopper to damage it or scare the pilot to leave the other guys behind. Either way, their quick escape would suddenly be gone. As soon as the grenades were out of her hands, she climbed the front of the van and crawled over the windshield to the roof. She flattened herself against the battered metal to avoid getting knocked over the side as the explosion made the ground rumble and rocked the van violently. It had barely righted itself back on all four wheels when she scrambled to her feet and leapt off the edge. She landed hard on one of the bad guys as he was picking himself up. She could feel the breath get driven out of him as they both toppled to the ground. The difference was that she rolled and got back up again, and he did not. His companion looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck – eyes wide, frozen and unsure of what to do. Fee uncoiled the monofilament whip from her gauntlet and cracked it at him. It caught him around the arm and a quick yank pulled him off-balance, another one knocked him on his ass and stunned him enough for her to bind his hands behind his back with a zip tie. She did the same to his companion and left them groggy and sagged against the fountain.

From the looks of things, they had tried to set an explosive charge to blow the van open. Her hands trembled as she peeled the device off the door and pulled out the wires and battery. Next, she threaded her whip around the handle, took a few steps back and activated the suit. The door didn't come off first try, but it dented and the hinges whined. The next tug pulled the back of the van open like a can of sardines.

Fiona's heart leapt into her throat as she climbed inside. One police officer was in a crumpled heap on the floor and blood was splattered on the wall, while Linus was slumped on the narrow seat, bruised and bleeding. She pulled him up as best she could and picked the cuffs that probably saved him from being pummelled like a rock in a tumble dryer when the van crashed. She'd never seen him this messed up before.

"Are you alive?" she asked softly and combed his hair out of his face. It stuck in places in the blood and she could feel a lump on the side of his head. She tried not to think about it.

He winced against her hand and his eyes fluttered. "Ow."

"Hey!" Hope made her chest ache as she forced herself to smile at him. "C'mon, I'm busting you out of this joint."

He blinked up at her and winced again. "All four of you?"

"Yes, I had myself cloned just for this. Can you stand?" She tried to pull his arm around her shoulders to help him up, but he let out a sharp hiss of pain and fell back against the wall.

"Smartass." He said hoarsely and pursed his lips into a thin line. "I don't think I can do much of anything right now." His eyes fluttered and lost focus.

She shook his shoulder. "Hey, stay with me."

"Hmm?" Through the swelling and blood, he looked confused and started to drift into unconsciousness again.

"Don't you fade on me, mister." Fee's voice cracked as she gave him another shake. This probably wasn't helping any, but she was also pretty sure that letting him pass out would be just as bad. "We've got unfinished business." Maybe it was a trick of the shadows, but she was pretty sure that he managed a faint smile.

"The story of us." He said wryly.

"I'm rewriting it." Her smile faltered. "This isn't supposed to go this way." Over the ringing in her ears, she could hear the wail of sirens getting closer. They didn't have time for this, they had to go.

He glanced to where the back of the van used to be. "Nothing will get resolved if we're both in jail. Get out of here."

"I'll get arrested if I want." She pulled off her mask. Her bike was possibly dead, the helicopter was on fire, and it was too far to get to a car to boost. If she was going to go down, then it was going to be her way. Unable to think of anything else to do, she threaded her fingers with his and gave his hand a small squeeze. It was reassuring to feel him squeeze back. Moments later, his eyes fluttered again and he was out. She gave him a small shake, then a slightly rougher one, but he didn't stir. "Dammit!" She hit his shoulder and winced because this really wasn't going to help.

Also not helping was the sound of a gun being cocked near her head. "Slowly raise your hands and lace them behind your head."

Fee did as she was told with her mask still grasped loosely in one hand. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the gunshot – this was going to screw with the whole plan to save the universe, surely – and hoped it would be over fast.

"Better put your mask back on."

She almost turned around to stare in bewilderment. If this was an assassination or arrest, it had to be the strangest one ever. Even in a world full of superheroes. Just get it over with already. "Huh?"

"Your mask, put it back on. I can't lie if I don't know who you really are."

Fee slid her mask back on and slowly turned to see Alex in tactical gear, looking shaken but determined. Ha, Fee had seen this movie before.

"FYI, I'm not going to get myself caught on purpose just to so I can blow up the police station, kidnap a mobster and later set him on fire, or create Two-Face."

"Good to know?" Alex looked confused, but her gun remained steady. "Step out of the van. I gotta check my guy."

Fee reluctantly climbed out and kept her hands level with her shoulders. "I don't think you can do too much for him, sorry."

"Shit, Neobeserker," Alex swore and took Linus' pulse. Her expression crumbled in a mixture of relief and anger. "He's alive."

"For now." Fee said and could have smacked herself. Never mind that Linus shouldn't even be able to die, what with being a deity. She was pretty sure a car crash was something hr ought to just shrug off. Or he would, if things weren't so messed up. This was going _so well_.

"You need to get out of here, Viperia." Alex said with a grim set to her jaw.

"I'm not leaving him."

Alex gave her a steady glare. "And this city can't lose all its heroes in one night." Fiona stubbornly stood her ground, at least until Alex raised her gun again. "I don't want to have to shoot or arrest you. The paperwork is a bitch."

Fee glanced over her shoulder to see the flashing lights from the approaching cars coming up the street. She barely had a moment to think about whether she was going to stick this out, or flee. Linus was right; nothing would be accomplished if she wasted all her time in a jail cell. The question was, could she still figure out a way to help if she left? Only time would tell.

So she ran.

*

  
The next three days proved that it was possible to feel worse than when she was turning into a vampire. The only way she could stop herself from going out of her mind was by doing something, so she focused on getting her bike fixed and going through her various searches. If she couldn't find a way to get herself home – even if that meant finding a science hero that could build a wormhole – then she could at least dig through the piles of information and maybe find out who was behind the plot to kill all her friends. At least the glitter on her skin finally faded and she no longer had to feel like she should look for an investment property in upstate Washington.

Just when she was about to go crazy anyway, Dirk showed up with news. His natural sparkle seemed subdued as he told her that Linus was alive, but barely hanging on. "Something about swelling on his brain, so nobody's sure when or if he'll wake up." He flexed his fingers into fists. "For all intents and purposes, the bad guys won this round."

"I've been working my brain into goo trying to figure out how to make sure that it's the last round they get." She gestured to the papers and photographs she'd stuck all over the walls. "There's only so many times I can look at all that before it stops making sense."

"You should get out of here." Dirk wiggled his eyebrows. "I'd suggest going out as a civilian, and you should swing by St Raphael's near the park. Ask for room 305."

"Somehow, I don't think I can just walk into a hospital and ask for a room without having to answer some tricky questions."

"Yeah, but I own it and I'm paying for room 305's medical care for as long as he's there. So I get to make up the visitor rules." He tried to remain flippant, but the glimmer was back in his eyes.

Fee flung herself at him to give him a fierce hug. "Ugh, you're amazing."

"That means a lot coming from you, considering that you punched me when we first met." He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a small squeeze.

"I wouldn't have done it if you didn't deserve it, just like I wouldn't be doing this." She kissed his cheek. "Thank you."

"Besides, I've got a date with Ash tonight, so don't wait up. Or come back. I can close the door to the room to hide your borderline creepy info walls and keep him distracted with my amazing self should things go well." He said and flashed a bright smile. Fiona made a mental note to take her spare handcuff key with her, just in case.

*

  
Fee expected to wake up in another world after a few days, but by the second week she was pretty sure that she was going to be stuck in this one for a while. That suited her just fine, she'd already worked out a pretty good routine that allowed her to visit the hospital regularly by day rather than having to break in during the middle of the night while on patrol. Besides, she liked the life of fighting crime and getting to do all cool things instead of just watching them in movies.

She told Linus about this when she came to visit. From what the doctors had told her, everything that was medically possible to help him recover had been done, the rest was now up to him. One had suggested playing music or reading Linus' favourite books as something familiar might provide the jolt to bring him out of it. After that, she went out and got a stack of trashy romance novels and tried to read a couple of chapters aloud whenever she came by. Other times, she talked simply to decompress about anything and everything. It was weird having a one-sided conversation, but at least she got to spit it all out without having to withstand any of Linus' trademark glares or the way he arched his eyebrow before he called her on her bullshit. Of course, even if he was awake, he'd probably just point out that she was doing such a good job of talking on his behalf, there was no need for him to say anything. It just made her miss the dire glares and one-word replies even more.

"You're a jerk, you know," she told him one afternoon. The current novel about dragons and vampires could wait, this had been nagging at her long enough. "We had a one night stand that lasted for six months and when it was over, it was done with. There was never an _us_ , and it's not like we stopped being friends, so I don't even know where you get the notion that there's something to be missed other than the sex – it was pretty good, but not enough to go quit your job over, vampires notwithstanding. I thought I made it pretty clear that I wasn't interested in anything romantic when we hooked up. You said you were okay with that, so I don't know where this business of secret feelings may have come from. You're a jerk for dumping this on me, for making me doubt myself and all my past decisions."

This was just the beginning of Fee pouring out her heart, in particular the story of when she was younger and had an affair with an older man. She thought it was completely worth it at the time, but in hindsight, she hated the way she acted and treated those close to her all because this was what she thought love was supposed to be like. It had taken a long time to figure herself out afterward and vowed not to wind up like that if she could help it. On top of that, her music career had really taken off in the last couple of years and she spent most of her time working and trying to present a reasonably professional front so as to be taken seriously in the industry. She might have learned to cope without much of a private life, but asking someone else to give up theirs seemed ludicrous at best. Her only conclusion was that while she may have been a mess of a human being, she was trying to be better. Ultimately, this was all she'd ever be (unless she got turned into a vampire again) and in the scheme of all the people she'd met on tour thus far...it was run of the mill and boring. This just added to her confusion as to why someone like Linus would even be remotely interested in someone like her; everyone else was more exciting, had special powers and secret skills, and she was just a girl in a band. Who was supposed to save the universe by getting Linus to snap out of it. No pressure.

She ended the visit quietly asking Linus to wake up just so she could go home and not have to feel this way all the time.

It didn't work. To make matters worse, by the time she got back to the hotel, Dirk was freaking out after he accidentally shot her cat with a raygun and now her cat was a hot boy. A confused, Conner-shaped, naked boy. This was why Fiona couldn't have nice things.

*

  
Weeks blurred into months and she gave up trying to keep tally. There were days when Fiona felt like this was where she had always been and everything else was a hazy dream, but there were others when she'd catch herself doing something like trying to call Candy or drive home to see her brother, only to realise that they weren't in this world. Those days felt like a knife was twisted in her chest and it hurt to breathe.

At least one mystery got solved – Titus went missing in the middle of an investigation into fringe science and was rescued by a new hero called Fever Blaze. Fiona didn't buy that he just came out of nowhere, fully formed and ready for action. The one and only time she'd worked with him, he left her high and dry in the middle of a gunfight with mob enforcers so that he could collar the boss and parade him before the press that had started to arrive at the scene. She'd been lucky to limp home with only a few grazes. As egotistical and self-serving as Dirk could be, at least he seemed to care about using his sparkly powers for good and not just the attention. It wasn't long after this incident that Dirk nearly drowned when he was helping Fever Blaze rescue kids off a school bus. One mishap, Fiona could overlook, but it couldn't be coincidence that both she and Dirk had problems with this guy. They put together a plan to keep an eye on Fever Blaze and confront him about his methods. It was Fee's turn to trail him when a gas main erupted in an apartment building and there were people in need of rescue. Fever Blaze was working with a hero named Shade Hunter when an explosion caused a corner of the building to collapse upon itself. Fee dodged burning rubble and live electrical wires to get to the guy, just in time too as the floor gave way almost as soon as they stumbled across what was left of the room. They took the shortcut down the elevator shaft and staggered out the front of the building just as Fever Blaze was giving a talk to the gathered press about the unfortunate accident that claimed Shade Hunter's life.

The look on his masked face was utterly priceless as the cameras swung around to Fee and Shade Hunter as they emerged from the smoke and debris. "Hey, I'm over here!" he called and was largely ignored.

"Bastard hit me with a lamp," Shade Hunter said hoarsely and shuddered with a coughing fit. He sounded suspiciously like Vernon.

"You're supposed to be dead!" Fever Blaze started to turn red in the portions of his face that weren't covered. "I'm the only hero in this goddamned city! _Me!_ "

"You gonna be okay for a minute? I gotta do something." Fee asked as she helped prop Shade Hunter against a car. He nodded weakly and waved her off. It may have been petty and vindictive, but it felt good to walk right up to Fever Blaze and punch him in his smug face. She went one step further and tore away his mask. "You don't deserve to wear this."

She didn't stick around for the aftermath, but at least Fever Blaze got what he wanted; all the attention and headlines were about him, though none of it was about his heroics. He was all too proud to brag about his plan to take out all the competition so he could be the one everyone adored and wanted to be when they grew up. The photos of the arrest were spectacular and Titus got himself an award for his follow up articles.

Fee felt proud as she relayed all this to Linus in hospital. He was in the clear, so he had more incentive to wake up. Anytime he felt like it.

Ten minutes later, alarms went off around his bed and panic gripped her as she looked around for what the problem was – none of the monitors showed a flatline, so she didn't understand what was wrong. She got quickly ushered out of the room by nurses and the blinds were drawn. It got worse when a doctor hurriedly told her that they had to prep Linus for surgery. Fiona survived on bad coffee and the adrenaline rush for as long as she could, but eventually she fell asleep on the plastic waiting room chairs.

*

  
When she woke up, she was in the middle of Ragnarok. It looked like every Meatloaf album cover with a side of D&D LARPing, only the dragons, trolls, and orcs were very much real. Oh, and the zombies were back. Fiona really hated that she had to deal with zombies again, especially during a time when indoor plumbing did not exist. There were a few days there when she reeked to high heaven and had globs of _something_ stuck in her hair. At least at this village, everything stank of smoke thanks to a dragon attack. The fields still smouldered and the beast itself had been brought down on the edge of the woods. Its carcass was left to rot so the stench would drive off any others that might think snacking on the villagers was a good idea. It was nice to finally have a breather after so much time trying to figure out where she was, what she was going to do about it, and how she was going to get home.

Darkness had fallen and spirits stayed high. Fee sat with the children and finished her story about a quest that ended with unfortunate deaths. All her quests on gaming night ended much like this early on and then she was on snack duty while she helped Linus be Dungeon Master. Since it was Ragnarok, she thought she could get away with some latitude with the truth and got herself a reputation as a bard.

"We told him not to go into the room," she told the kids, her tone grave. "He did not listen."

A boy gasped and there were a few murmurs of, "no!" before one of the older girls lifted her chin. "And then what? You can't leave it there!"

"He got eaten." Fiona sat back and bowed her head. "He got eaten by a _Grue_." This was a sufficiently scary enough ending as a couple of the kids fled back to their parents while others laughed and puffed themselves up over how they could totally fight a Grue and win.

"Your stories are not like any I have heard before." A big, leather clad guy with greasy hair and some impressive stubble sat himself down beside her and offered her his tankard of ale. "Likewise, your runes." He smoothed his fingers over the markings in woad on her arm. "This is a story of gods, not battles."

She shrugged away from his touch and glanced down to make sure that he hadn't smudged all her careful work. One thing she figured out from the superhero universe was that she wasn't going to be able to take all the information she'd gathered on Linus and Nyx with her. She spent some time compressing it down into bullet points. Since taking a stone tablet with her everywhere wasn't exactly practical, she'd drawn the information on herself. "The story isn't finished yet."

"Is this why you came to town asking to speak to the Angel of Death?" The guy asked with a rakish smile and drank the ale in a few long gulps.

"Yes. I need guidance, but I was told there was no soothsayer in these parts." She helped steady him as he swayed unsteadily on the bench.

"That's because my brother has only just arrived." His smile grew and he winked. "Come, I'll take you to the Angel of Death. You'll get your guidance."

Fee regarded him suspiciously for a moment as she wondered if this was some new form of innuendo. "Point your brother out to me and I'll visit him in the morning."

The guy pointed unsteadily toward a dark corner of the hall where a lone shadowy figure sat. "He's the one that looks like he's never seen a woman before, let alone so many so fine." Before she could say anything, he bellowed at someone to get away from the roast pig and not eat it all and he was off. Fiona was left confused for a few minutes, not sure if she'd just been propositioned or was going to be the butt of a joke. It would be hilarious to everyone that wasn't her. Nevertheless, on the slim chance that the drunk guy was telling the truth, she may as well go talk to his brother. She picked up a cup of mead by way of offering in case this did turn out to be a misunderstanding.

"Your brother said I ought to talk to you." She said as she sat down near the loner in the corner and offered him the mead. He looked bewildered both at her and the cup, then narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Which one? I have three."

"Uh, tall one." She searched the crowd. "The one trying to pull the other guy off the roast pig."

"Ohhh. I'm sure you're a nice lass, but I don't need my bed lined with women every night." He pulled his cloak tighter around his body and leaned back against the wall.

"I'm not here to be your bed warmer." Fee didn't know if she ought to be insulted or relieved. "He said you were a soothsayer and I need my sooth said. If now's a bad time, I'll come back in the morning."

"I'm not a soothsayer." He said.

"But he said you were the Angel of Death."

"I am."

"But if you're not a soothsay—" Fee cut herself off and looked back to the crowd. The drunk guy that had pointed her to this corner was now involved in a punch up with Bjorn the Bear, the roast pig was still being eaten by a small scrawny guy and there was a sickly looking one that picked up scraps that fell off the table. She stared back at the guy beside her. She always figured Death would be more like the classic Grim Reaper, or a tall, gaunt undertaker type. Instead, he was like everyone she used to hang out with in college; dishevelled and not exactly memorable. She half-expected him to have an Iron Maiden t-shirt under his cloak and chipped nailpolish on his fingers. "Do I call you Death, or the Pale Rider, or...?"

"Azrael will do." He said with a shy smile.

"I need some help finding a god. He used to be associated with Erebus and the Goddess of Night. All the soothsayers I've spoken to get vague about water, shadows, and head north toward the sea. I'm running out of north before there's nothing but sea." She told him. "Can you help me?"

"Requalivahanus. He is the darkness of the Erebus and Nyx's favourite." Azrael nodded knowingly, but his smile turned sad. "He used to be a lot of things to my sister. And then he left, which is just as well because she'd probably kill him if he went back. Literally, not metaphorically."

Fee's heart sank. "I'm pretty sure she did just that. Which is why I'm here; she asked me to fix it."

"Oh." He said, surprised. "How magnanimous."

"That's probably the nicest way of putting it." She said with a heavy sigh. "At least now I know who I'm looking for."

"I think I can help with that, too." Azrael sat up a little straighter, but deflated almost immediately when he looked toward the door. "Wait, it's the middle of the night. You probably don't want to go walking through the woods during Ragnarok with me right now."

The brawl between Bjorn the Bear and War had turned into some kind of punching and drinking game between them and everyone else. Fee couldn't tell if there were any rules or who was winning, but she was going to guess that those who fell into the fire pit were the losers. Wulfgar stumbled and crashed into the table near them, managed to pick a chicken bone out of his beard and then passed out slumped over the bench.

"Leaving now is fine by me." She said as she turned toward Azrael, who fumbled with the cup of mead before it could topple from the table.

"You're supposed to drink this, yes?" he asked and cautiously raised the cup to his lips. One sip later, he turned pale, his eyes watered, and he started to sputter and cough. "It burns!" he rasped.

She patted him gently on the back. "That's the point."

Once he'd quieted down, he eyed off the cup and pushed it toward her. "We should get some more."

*

  
Death's version of help was to sit on the edge of a meadow while a dragon rolled around like a giant, reptilian cat as it got its tummy rubbed by a petite girl that made squeaky noises a lot. Fee was left to stand awkwardly nearby with a skin of mead and wondered when she could get to the finding Linus part.

"Are we here to talk to the dragon or the girl?" she asked and gave Azrael's shoulder a small nudge with her knee.

"Hmm? Oh." He looked startled, like he'd forgotten she was even there. "Right. Not the dragon."

"Okay then." She raised her fingers to her lips and let out a piercing whistle and yelled, "Hey you, with the dragon!"

Bad idea. The dragon rolled over onto its feet with a vicious snort, its nostrils and throat aglow with fire that could belch out at any moment.

"You should let me do the talking." Azrael got to his feet and waved. "Hello, Israfil."

"WHA-HAAAYYY!!!!" The girl – Israfil – called back with a croaky voice and ran across the grass to throw herself at Azrael, arms and legs wrapped around him in a tight hug. He stumbled back half a step and managed to catch himself before he fell over. Israfil slid to the ground and bounced on the balls of her bare feet. "What's with the meatsack?" she tilted her head toward Fee.

"Hey," Fiona said, but shut up when Azrael gave her a withering look. She held out the skin of mead.

"The meatsack's with my sister. We brought mead." Azrael carefully extricated himself from Israfil's hold. "She's looking for Requalivahanus."

"Your sister or the meatsack?" Israfil asked and looked confused.

"Everyone needs to stop calling me a meatsack." Fee said, only to get glared at twice over. She glared right back and refused to back down, even though there was a tiny part of her brain screaming in terror about how sassing Death itself was probably not a good idea. Even if they did start it.

Azrael was the one that blinked first. "Anyway," he went back to the conversation at hand. "This fine young lady is here for Requalivahanus. You've probably seen more of him than I have, do you know where he is?"

All the joy left Israfil's face and the world felt a little dimmer for it. Even the stars weren't quite so bright. "He's down by the beach," she replied and pointed toward the woods. "Follow the stream and you can't really miss the black hole of self-pity. Loki was more cheerful when he was tied to a rock and had poison dripped onto him every day."

"Take it up with Nyx." Azrael said with an apologetic shrug.

"I would, but I'm busy right now with the party of the ages. And I value my life." Israfil gestured to the heavens with quick, fluttering fingers.

As the conversation went on, Fee got tired of just standing there so she set down the skin and slowly edged away. Neither Azrael or Israfil noticed. Maybe they both forgot she existed. The dragon didn't forget. It snorted and watched her with glowing eyes as she crossed the field. Its tail lashed back and forth, and again she was reminded of a cat about to pounce. She scooped up a stick from the ground and threw it. The dragon followed the movement and went scampering off with a deep bass purr. She hurried into the woods before it came back. It wasn't hard to find the stream (she nearly fell into it, so that helped) and follow it to where the woods gave way to a grey beach and the quiet rush of waves in the harbour.

She spotted a figure on the edge of the sand, pale and slender in the moonlight and headed toward it. It wasn't until she was almost at it that she realised she was mistaken; this wasn't Linus, it was a scarecrow. It was perched at an angle amongst the tufts of grass and wobbled in the gentle breeze, its white clay face stared sightlessly at the water. She jerked back when it suddenly shuddered and half-turned toward her. There were movies about this sort of thing and all of them involved the heroine suddenly getting a bladed weapon through the torso. Every one of Fee's instincts said to run and not look back (because if she did that, she'd see that it was gone, or had moved closer to her), but she swallowed her pounding heart and leaned around to see the stake in the ground and the loose ties. It was probably a bad idea as she edged around and pulled the scarecrow back in place to refasten its tethers. It couldn't chase her if it was tied to the ground, right?

Over the scarecrow's shoulder, she noticed that the beach wasn't entirely deserted after all. In the shadow of a beached boat sat Linus, the waves sloshing at his feet. Israfil wasn't kidding about the black hole of self-pity, Fee had never seen Linus look this...defeated. He barely glanced at her as she sat down beside him and winced as a wave soaked through her boots with freezing water.

"You're not an easy person to find." She bumped her shoulder against his.

"I don't want to be found." He replied with a heavy sigh, like it was too much effort to sit and talk at the same time. "Go away."

"Make me. I've travelled half the length of Norway to get here. During Ragnarok." She bumped his shoulder again and this time, he jabbed her in the ribs with his bony elbow. "That's the best you've got? Kittens are more vicious."

"You came all this way to find me just to insult me?" He finally looked over at her and slowly raised his eyebrows.

"No, I came all this way to tell you that you've got to get out of whatever funk you're in so the universe doesn't end. Not just this one, but all of them." She said. "And apparently it has to be me that tells you this, because if Nyx does it, then everything will get devoured by the Void. It helps that in this world, you're not in a coma."

He snorted and giggled. Fee stared. It was weird enough on the rare occasions when Linus actually laughed, but to hear him outright _giggle_ was incredibly disconcerting. Next, he'd start making animated facial expressions and not speak in monotone. The universe really must be ending. He swayed and slumped against her, still giggling, and she finally smelled the alcohol on his breath. "Are you drunk?"

"Just a bit." He smiled, but it was bitter. "If this isn't the occasion for it, I don't know what is." He gesture to the horizon just as stars streaked across the sky and the ground rumbled in the wake of the sonic boom. "Everyone's tearing each other to pieces and for what? It's all going to be consumed. Crying out for help won't work because you've all forgotten those who used to walk amongst you. The dead are the lucky ones; they don't get to see it coming. Cthulhu had the right idea in sinking to the crushing depths to slumber. Maybe I should do that. I miss the dark and the cold."

She propped him up as best she could by her side. She always figured him for a funny drunk, not a sad philosophical one. She'd spent a small fortune on tequila trying to find out, but he had some kind of iron liver so all she managed to do was give herself some monumental hangovers throughout the years. "Don't go into the cold and the dark. I can't breathe underwater."

"Why do you even care? You're going to die just like everyone else. Your life is such a tiny ember that's so easily snuffed out, and then you become dust and nobody will know that you even lived." Almost to illustrate his point, there was a flash of light on the horizon as one of the meteors made impact.

Her throat went tight as she tried to keep her temper in check. It hurt to basically be told that her life, and the lives of everyone she'd ever known, was suddenly not worth the trouble. And everything that she'd worked for – while it may not change the world, some days getting out of bed was an achievement on its own – was suddenly invalid. Everything she'd ever enjoyed or hated or been moved by, all moot. No, it couldn't come down to that. Her life meant something, even if it was only that she lived and nothing more.

Fee smacked Linus upside the head. "If it's all so goddamned futile, then why even show up in the first place? Hmm? You could have stayed in the cold and the dark from whence you came and let the world pass you by. There must have been something worthwhile to get you to walk amongst the dust of humanity. And so help me, I will dunk your stupid face in the water to sober you up if you keep going on with this bullshit."

"I don't remember." He said quietly, his words almost swallowed up by the sloshing of water at their feet as it started to drain away from the harbour.

"You're going to have to try! You might not be of this world, but you're still part of it. Life is not this tiny, fragile thing that's going to crumble if you reach out and touch it. To keep drifting through, disconnected from everyone and everything, that must be so lonely." Linus regarded her in shocked silence as he rubbed the back of his head. She gritted her teeth and held out her hand. "This is life reaching out to you, Linus. It's up to you whether you want to take a chance on it. I've chased you through all these lives, I refuse to believe that it's all for nothing."

He looked at her hand and then back up to her face, his expression unreadable as ever. He opened his mouth to say something, but the roar of water ate his words. Fee glanced up just in time to see the wave roll toward them. It wasn't big, but there was no way she could outrun that. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes just as it hit the shore and the water swallowed her up.

*

  
Fiona spat out a mouth full of water as she toppled out off the couch. Arms caught hold of her before the floor could rush up and hit her in the face. "Hey, steady. Maybe Donna was right and I shoulda gone with Jell-o." Seth said as he set down a glass of water on the floor and carefully pulled her back up to the couch. This was the bus. She was back! She threw her arms around her brother's neck and dragged him down beside her.

"I'm fine!" she shouted happily and messed up his hair. "Everything is fine!"

He looked more confused than usual. "Good, because the family's here. Please tell me you're not still drunk."

"Nope." She said with a grin. "Groggy, headachey, and on top of the world. Next town we roll through, I am raiding the liquor store because I am never drinking Russell's moonshine _ever again_."

"I'll believe it when I see it." Seth said as he got up and offered her a hand. She grabbed it with the intent of pulling herself to her feet, but he yanked her against him and scooped her up in his arms to carry her off the bus. She was shrieking and laughing by the time he let her slide to the ground, the last grogginess from her trip through other universes now just a dull throb at the back of her head. And just as well, because Seth set her down right in front of their mother.

Today was the best day ever. Fee hugged her Ma and got a bit squished when Seth joined in.

"Aww, I know we're late, but really," Ma said, but squeezed them both back. "Better save some of that for the others."

Fee managed to just get herself out of the way for her sister to throw herself into the group hug. "This is why punk is dead," Bronwyn said with a mischievous grin. "Hugging is totally effing brutal."

"Language." Ma said with a glare.

"Sorry." Bronwyn replied, utterly unrepentant.

And then Fiona's world came crashing down when Dad rounded the edge of the bus and waved at them. Getting punched in the chest, bitten by a vampire, various head injuries, and possibly drowning combined did not hurt as much as it did to see him smile and make his way toward them. He was older now with more grey hair and lines around his eyes from smiling, but it was still _Dad_. She found herself staring, trying to see if there were any scars from the accident and then what air was left in her lungs got knocked out when she wondered if maybe he'd wound up infected like Seth. One shapeshifter in the family was awkward enough.

But it was Dad. And he was _alive._

"Fee, Fee, are you okay?" Bronwyn gave her shoulder a small shake. "You don't look so good."

"I'm fine," Fee's voice wavered, and even she was unconvinced of what she was saying. "Just overwhelmed. Seth woke me up just before you guys got here."

"Still drunk?" Her sister asked and then mimed zipping her mouth. "I won't tell Ma."

"I am not drunk." Fee said and bit back a snarl about no, it was only her soul that had been destroyed, everything else was just dandy. Bronwyn didn't deserve to get the brunt of Fee's issues. "I'm gonna go round up Candy, she'll be thrilled to see you guys." She forced herself to smile and left before she could get sucked back into the family hugs.

She had no intention of finding Candy. She just wanted to retreat to the bus, curl up, close her eyes and wish for all of this to go away. There was the chance that if she tried hard enough, it might actually happen. Fee retreated to the other bus in the hope of avoiding everyone for a little while, only to see Candy in the back lounge half a second before a shoe got hurled right at her head.

"What the fuck?" Fee ducked to avoid the platform stiletto.

"Who are you and what have you done with my Fiona?!" Candy pulled the other shoe from her foot and hefted it menacingly.

"What." Fee's voice came out as a surprised squeak.

"On a day like today, I can read Fiona at a hundred feet. You got on the bus and in here and there's _nothing_. So you can't be Fee. Don't come any closer; just tell me what you've done with my best friend." Candy drew back her arm in preparation to throw.

"Hey, whoa!" Fee held up her hands in surrender. "I come in peace!" It was a long shot, but if Candy was able to figure out that she didn't belong here, maybe she could help fix this. At the very least, Fee needed to be in any other world but this one. She glanced out the window toward her family gathering and all the air went out of her lungs.

Her arms hurt from keeping her hand near her shoulders by the time she finished explaining about the _Quantum Leap_ through the universe, and she wound up sagged against the narrow doorway when she got to the part of having her soul shredded simply by being here. Candy sat on the edge of the couch and stared over the rims of her glasses, her shoe dangling from her fingers, forgotten.

"Well," she said, finally. "That's...one doozey of a pickle."

Fee hugged herself. "I can't do this, Candy. I've spent so long wanting Dad back and finally got my head together that it's not going to happen, but now _he's here_ and I'm here, and...I can't be here, otherwise I'll never leave. Which can't be good for the universe, but I don't care because _it's my Dad_." She knew she was rambling and probably stopped making sense back when she got to talking about vampires. Everything was so messed up, it really didn't matter anymore.

"Aw, honey," Candy said softly and set her shoe on the floor. "C'mere. This calls for a hug."

"Yeah, but you're all haywire."

"And I can't read you. I don't need to be psychic to see that your heart's in pieces. Now get your ass over here." Fee couldn't argue with her tone or the glare over her glasses and shuffled toward the couch. Candy wrapped her arms around her shoulders and pressed her face into the bend of her neck. She just went with it, glad that she wasn't alone this time around.

"I don't understand," Fee said when she felt like she'd finally calmed down enough to function, but her voice still wavered and threatened to crack. "You managed to get a vision off me back at the start. But then, Oliver couldn't get into my head, so I don't know."

"Shhh, I don't want to question it." Candy mumbled against her neck. "You have no idea how long it's been since I've been able to hold someone and not get their life flash before my eyes. And on a day like today, when I can get zapped by just picking up a coffee mug, it's going a long way to making me feel human."

"Can you at least try? If you still have nothing, I'll go bother Oliver. I just could use a clue right now, something to keep me going or else I'm just...I don't know anymore." Fee tried to bury her head under a pillow, only Candy pulled her upright.

"Just shut up and sit still. If we do this fast, I might be able to avoid a migraine." She pushed her glasses on top of her head, closed her eyes, and cupped Fee's face. At first there was nothing. Candy pursed her lips and scowled. Fee felt a bit silly sitting there as the nothing continued. She was about to say not to bother when she finally felt the cool energy break out over her skin and raise the hair on the back of her neck. "You've got blue hair and crazy motorcycle jacket like Uma Thurman in _Kill Bill_. And you just fell into a hole full of water." She winced and pulled her hands away. Fee shivered and felt the cold leave her skin. Candy opened one eye suspiciously, then the other. "It gets jumbled after that. You fall in a hole, but you're flying a plane, you're fencing with Russell, and then there's a giant space squid. And it just keeps going on, like when you have two mirrors bouncing off each other. It's endless and each reflection is different, but...they're all _you_. And, I don't know, maybe this is why I can't get a read on you. I'm getting all of them at once and they can cancel each other out or form a white noise that makes it impossible to sort through."

"If that's true, then it's possible that the other you was picking up on the vampire world I fell into next." Fee rubbed her temple and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Oliver could have the same problem. I hate to bother him, though." Candy shrugged. "None of this is particularly helpful."

"It's better than nothing. I'm not entirely sure how I go about summoning the gods, least of all one that technically isn't a god right now. And the internet is not a means to summon gods or anything else, at least not according to our Halloween Horrorfests." Maybe if Fee wrote all this down, something might leap out at her. She got up and grabbed a notepad from the kitchen bench and froze. The fridge was still covered with photographs of family and from landmarks on tour. Pride of place at eye height was the band with all their loved ones crammed into one tiny frame. Donna was lost amongst her brothers; Jeff looked scared out of his mind but his smile was also the biggest and brightest as he looked up at his parents; Candy hid half-behind her mother's shoulder and clutched Fee's hand. Fee was leaning over Russell to reach out and mess up Bronwyn's then-purple hair, while Seth held up a hand to make rabbit ears behind Linus, who in turn had his arm around Bronwyn and she had her hand in the back pocket of his jeans. Another photo showed Bronwyn and Linus standing awkwardly together like they were posing for the prom. There was a diamond ring on her sister's left hand.

"Oh _come on_!" Fiona swore at the photo. "Gimme a fucking break already!"

"What now?" Candy climbed up to lean over the back of the lounge and around the corner as far as she could go without losing her balance.

"You never mentioned that my sister was engaged to Linus." Fee pointed to the photo. "There has got to be a way to bail on this world so that nobody gets their lives ruined by all this crap. Waiting this one out is not an option."

"Won't everyone's lives be ruined anyway if the universe isn't saved?"

Fee glared. "Not helpful."

"Sorry." Candy settled her glasses back on her nose and tapped the fridge door. "Get me a bottle of water. I can't reach the handle."

"Only for you do I do these things." Fee said with a resigned sigh, though she made sure to give Candy a scare by pulling the door open far enough that it nearly hit her nose. The move was met with a yelp as Candy jerked out of the way. She grabbed the first bottle she could see and went to close the door, only Candy had curled her fingers around the edge and held tight. "I need to shut the fridge."

"Juuust a second." Candy started to pull photos off with her other hand. "Okay."

Fee closed the door and felt hollow as she realised that all the photos of herself were now gone. It was eerily apropos of her situation and she had to wonder if there were Fiona-shaped holes across the universe. "This isn't making me feel any better."

"Shush. I'm trying to help." Candy spread the pictures out on the cushion beside her.

Fee tossed the bottle of water onto the end of the couch and sank to the floor. "Do I have to try and guess as to how this is helping? Because this is the kind of help that's not."

"Just...shush." Candy kicked at her half-heartedly and started to sort through the pictures. She held them close to her face and even resorted to using her glasses as a makeshift magnifier. "I don't think you need to look on the internet to find a way to summon gods. I think they might come to you."

She held out the current photo she was holding. It was of the two of them at a diner somewhere with a huge stack of blueberry pancakes in front of them.

"I know people see the Virgin Mary in their grilled cheese sandwiches, but I'm not seeing anything in the pancakes." Fee said.

"No, out the window." Candy pointed. By her nail was a pale, slender form perched on the roof of the building across the street from the diner. It was too big to be a bird, but too gaunt to be a person. There was a blob that might have been a hat on its head.

"Is that a scarecrow?" Fee turned the photo slightly to the side so the pose lined up with her mental image.

"I think so. And there's one in every picture of you. They're hard to spot, but...well, see for yourself." Candy waved her hands over the pictures laid out on the cushion. "I'm going to get my computer to see if I can find the originals." She edged past Fee and headed toward the sleeping area. Fee picked up a couple of photos to try and see what she meant. It was a little like playing _Where's Wally?_ only without the benefit of looking for red and white stripes.

"I don't get it," she said after the fifth one. By then, Candy had returned with her laptop and Donna's camera. "And Donna will kill you if she finds out you're touching her baby."

"I don't fear the Wrath of Donna. That's the difference between you and me." Candy replied calmly and turned the computer around so Fee could see the screen. "I swear I didn't just Photoshop it in."

The screen showed another rooftop, this one with red tiles and gaudy whitewashed lions on the corner near the downpipe. And the scarecrow as it stood on the very edge of the gutter with bony, birdlike talons instead of feet. Thin arms hugged its knees to its chest, and the hat hid most of its face. But what she could see of it made Fiona turn cold. It was the same smooth white with black holes for eyes as the scarecrow that she'd seen in Ragnarok.

"Turn it off." She said softly and squeezed her eyes shut.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this is the Goddess of Night keeping an eye on you?" Candy said and there were the sounds of the computer shutting down and movement. Fee peeked out the corner of her eye to see Candy sink to the floor beside her and felt her arm wrap around her shoulders. "I mean, Death has crows for his messengers, right? Everyone knows about that. So if they don't get along, it makes sense that she'd pick scarecrows to keep him out of her business."

"I don't need a reason to be paranoid about scarecrows, don't give me legitimate reason to be freaked out by them." Fee leaned against her.

"We have a gig tonight. I'll go hunting with you afterward." Candy gave her shoulders a squeeze. "I'll hold the flashlight, you can have the bag of salt."

Hunting scarecrows in the dark, why there was nothing at all that could go horrifyingly wrong with that. Fiona buried her face in her hands. "Fuck my life."

*

  
That night, Fiona played for her life. After all the heartache and misery, it was good to have a guitar back in her hands. She could pour everything that had been weighing her down into the music and let it fly into the night via the massive speakers. Her fingers ached and she was pretty sure she was going to be _so_ sore in the morning, but all that was secondary. This was all about the moment. And the moment was _alive_. There was nothing like standing on an amp on the edge of the stage and screaming her lungs out at the thousands of people packed in front of her screaming right back. The universe could end tonight and Fee would have zero regrets.

The last song of the encore came far too soon. Candy had to hustle her to the backstage by steering her by her hips. "Just keep walking."

"This could be the last night in the universe." Fee said, breathless and hoarse but for once it was from something completely worth it. "It's the best night."

"Yeah, it is." Candy grinned and rested her chin on Fee's shoulder. "I'll meet you at the bus and we can go monster hunting." She kissed the side of her neck and wove her way through the rest of the band. Fee watched her go, her skin still tingling both from the kiss and the energy of the night that clung to her, coursed through her veins with a warm buzz. Because of that, she refused to feel bad for what she was about to do.

Her parents and sister were waiting for them out the back. Dad had his camera out and was taking photos of the fans that had flocked near the rear in the hopes of getting an autograph or picture. Shrieks of delight rippled through them as Donna and Russell went over to the fenceline. Fee went over to Dad and tapped him on the shoulder. "Dad?"

He glanced over at her and smiled. "Oops, caught me."

"I'll let you get back to it in a sec. I know I'm all sweaty and gross, but..." she trailed off and wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. "Sorry for not doing this earlier."

"You never need to apologise to me, you know that." He said as he fumbled to get the camera out of the way so he could squeeze her back.

Fee couldn't count the number of times she dreamt of doing exactly this. In her fantasy, Dad told her how proud he was of her and how seeing her do something she loved was worth all the worry. Now that it was here, and it was real, he didn't need to say anything. It was in his voice, the way he looked at her, and gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder. This was the moment that Fee indulged herself and believe that she could stay here, that she'd always belonged, that tomorrow would be just an ordinary day.

"I love you, Dad." She said and forced herself to release him. The moment was over, reality was waiting. Nothing could dim her smile. "I'm gonna go change out of my stage clothes. Seth can rescue you if the crowd gets too much, right?"

"I got this. After six months in the jungle, you kids are easy." Dad smiled back.

Fee made herself step away and push through to the exit. She would have loved to stick around and kept the moment alive, but it would be like trying to hold onto a ghost. She finally got through to the exit and ran as far from the buses as she could. As much as she wanted to have Candy with her for this, it was probably better if she wasn't around.

"Okay!" Fiona told the darkness. "I know you're out there. Show yourself!"

There was nothing but the boom in the distance as the festival continued and the chirping of insects. She started to feel a little foolish being out here by herself, yelling at the night. Suddenly, silence stretched around her. Even the music became a muted thud. The skin between her shoulders itched and she had a horrible feeling that something was behind her. Fee whirled around and saw nothing but grass and the tree line. The tension drained out of her and she turned back only to come face to face with the scarecrow. Her voice froze and it took everything she had not to jerk away.

It was tall and gaunt, even hunched over so it could stare at her. Rotten straw poked out from under its wide-brimmed hat and its grimy canvas clothes rustled quietly as they settled around its frame. It had the same white, blank face with holes for eyes that stared sightlessly at her.

Fee swallowed tightly. "I need to talk to Nyx."

The scarecrow jerked back with a watery chittering sound. Its mouth opened and nearly split its face in two, showing off pointed shark's teeth.

" _Whaaaat_." It rasped through quivering thin lips as it struggled to form words with a mouth clearly not made for talking. " _What dooo you wannnnt_."

"I can't stay here. I need to go." Fee told it.

The scarecrow let out a low hiss. " _No_."

"Fine." She said and shrugged. "I quit."

The scarecrow tilted its head to one side and bobbed in a quick, birdlike motion. " _No_."

"No? Do you honestly expect me to be swayed by that stunning argument? Look, you're the one who made this mess and threw me right into the middle of it. You could have picked Seth, who's probably much better suited for all this shit than I am, because he's at least run with vampires and shapeshifters and has a better idea of what's actually out there than I do. You could have picked Vernon, who has experience in trans-dimensional travel. Then there's Candy, and while her nerves may be frazzled, she's all spitfire. I can name at least a dozen people who are better qualified for this, but none of them are here." Fee waved to the empty field around them. "It's just me. I got you on this, Nyx. You need me. I'll keep going with this and I'll find a way to help Linus, but not _here_. Not in this world. Move me on, or I walk away right now and you can fix your own fucking mess."

The scarecrow bobbed again and flexed its bony fingers, the joints popping loudly. It looked like it wanted to reach for her with its sharp talons but was being held back by an invisible hand. " _You wouldn't dare_."

"Watch me." Fee said and walked past the creature as it twitched and flailed. She was maybe a dozen yards from it when it let out a piercing shriek. She heard a soft flutter and felt something brush past her and it was back in front of her, still as a statue as its clothes rustled and fell into place, not quite able to keep up with the speed of its movements.

She did what she'd been meaning to do since the vampire world; she punched that smooth, pale face as hard as she could. The scarecrow's face wasn't the hard clay she thought it would be, more a soft wax that made a gross squelching noise as her fist connected. She really hoped that the blow would translate through the conduit Nyx had with the creature. The scarecrow didn't quite topple. It hung there at an impossible angle like it dangled from invisible strings. There was now a fist-sized dent in its face and that made Fee feel better about herself.

" _Why_?" It hissed at her.

That was the stupidest question she had ever heard.

"Why not?" Fee snarled back. "You ruined my life! You ruined my friend's life! You fucked up the universe, so you've ruined _everyone's_ lives! I'm tired, I'm stretched thin, and right over there is my _Dad_ , who's supposed to be dead. If you've ever cared for anyone outside of yourself and lost them, you'd know what I'm feeling right now."

The scarecrow slowly pushed itself upright and shrank away. " _My son_." Its voice was almost human. " _My son was murdered._ "

"You're a goddess, why don't you just bring him back?"

" _It doesn't work like that_." The scarecrow took another step back.

"Imagine if it did. Imagine if he was suddenly back and all the wounds in your heart opened back up again." Fiona pressed in and forced it to scuttle out of her way. "And while you're dying inside, if some asshole came along and told you to suck it up and soldier on, punching them in the face is probably the least you'd do to them. I'm not a goddess, so I can't turn people into condiments or smite them with my mind, but I am more than willing to punch you again."

The scarecrow slumped and almost collapsed upon itself with a gurgling moan. " _I shall do as you ask._ " Black tears trickled from its eyes before it gave a violent shudder and pulled itself to its feet. " _But you still owe me_." The scarecrow bared its teeth in a wicked grin.

And then it lunged.

Fee was knocked to the ground and they both went tumbling across the grass. The world spun crazily and suddenly the ground fell away completely. She was _flying_. Her stomach lurched as she waited for gravity to tug her back down to earth. It never did.

*

  
The world was suddenly washed gold, so bright it hurt Fiona's eyes. Something massive and reptilian slithered past her and the world shuddered. She blinked to bring things back into focus and wished she hadn't because there was an eyeball the size of a planet staring at her. The pupil constricted to a narrow slit and a translucent lid flickered before it drew away. The biggest dragon in the universe reared its head, spines rustling as it flattened its hood, and struck a tentacle of inky darkness that got too close.

Fee could feel all the molecules in her body shiver in awe of the sight. A leaf fell from high above and another tentacle snaked out toward it. The dragon whipped its head around and bit the tendril clean in two. Something screamed in pain and she was pretty sure this was going to be the soundtrack to her nightmares for the rest of her life. The leaf drifted near her, close enough to touch. Before she could think about her actions, she reached out and her fingers brushed the edge.

Gravity snapped back in place with a sickening lurch. The leaf fell, and so did she. The light faded into black.

*

  
Candy was right. It was hard to keep track of exactly what she was right about, but Fiona was sure that she was right about it all. Fee went through a world where she had blue hair and raced around the desert in the search for a forgotten city. There was another where she had an airship and laser gun, one where she had a tight corset and rooms beside the king's chamber, one where she flew through a nebula to try and dodge a swarm of squid that emerged from hyperspace. She fought robots and more vampires, ran with pirates and assassins, was part of a cult, and went back to high school. With each new world that she woke up in, she felt like a stranger in her own skin.

In the current here, she was a pilot that flew replacement planes to the boys that had been shot down or had to eject. Sometimes she ferried cargo or squads off to join the Allies on the ground. This was the last night of her leave in a freshly liberated Paris and the occasion deserved a toast.

She found one of the rowdier bars in the area and bought a bottle of genuine champagne. The bubbles went straight to her head and she lost the bottle to a rowdy group of British boys. They looked like they would get more enjoyment out of it than she would, anyway. She didn't quite have enough to get a bottle of the local red, but a dashingly handsome Sergeant Linus Bergstrom came to her rescue with a few extra francs. They wound up sharing the wine in a corner in relative peace. A stony-faced Oliver came by to remind Linus to take it easy on the wine because he wasn't going to coddle anyone with a hangover in the morning, bummed a cigarette off him, and then went off to get Titus down from one of the tables with a bark about he was in the army, not in a chorus line.

"Let's get out of here before he starts doing the Can-can," Linus suggested with a small smile.

"I don't know, it might worth staying for dinner and a show." Fiona said as she slouched down in her chair. "I don't know about you, but I have no intention of getting any sleep tonight."

She laughed at the look of disappointment on his face when she pulled him to the dance floor instead of following him toward the door. She pointed out that they could die tomorrow and this could be the last time she got to dance. She just wanted to feel alive.

"I bet you say that to all the guys." He said and kissed her just below her ear. She laughed again and this time didn't protest when he led her away. They wound up in the back storeroom, Fee balanced against the wall and one foot propped up on a crate, her skirt bunched around her waist, one hand tangled in his hair and the other gripping his hand tightly enough to leave marks on his skin. His breath was hot against her throat and he murmured profanities in French to her hair. She muffled the sounds she made against his shoulder and with a love bite too high on his neck for his collar to cover. If she was going to be an utter disgrace to the uniform, she was going to take him with her. His fingers dug into her thigh as he wrapped her leg around his hip and moaned, no longer able to form words. It wasn't long before they were both shaking and gasping, hot and giddy and reluctant to untangle themselves from each other. Fee's knees wobbled as she tried to stand on her own and straighten her skirt. Linus fumbled trying to buckle his belt with trembling hands. She pulled them away and fastened it herself, then moved her fingers up to button his shirt.

"If I don't do this now, I'm going to regret it." He said softly and tilted up her chin toward him as he leaned in to kiss her. Her toes curled for a second time and her breath caught, his mouth warm and firm, his teeth biting just hard enough to draw a sound from her throat.

"That's the kind of kiss that could turn a girl's head." She said, breathless, and sagged back against the wall.

"That's the general idea." He smiled. It was ridiculous because he had a smudge on the corner of his mouth. She laughed and almost regretted it as her muscles had already started to pleasantly ache. His smile quickly faded, replaced by concern. "Are you okay?"

She coughed weakly. "Fine. Better than fine. Why?"

"You have..." he touched her lower lip and his thumb came away dark, too dark for lipstick. Her next breath shuddered and hurt her lungs. Something cool slid out of her mouth as she started to cough harder. Her knees gave out and she crumpled to the floor, spitting out a mouthful of dark goo.

"What...?" she wheezed, horrified. She could feel it crawling up out of her chest and oozing from her nose. The warmth from the afterglow disappeared in a bone-aching chill as the gack kept pouring out of her. Worse, it stretched toward Linus with writhing tendrils that slithered over his hand to the marks she'd left in his skin.

"Fee," he cupped her face with his other hand. "Hold on."

Her arm buckled and she collapsed on the floor.

*

  
Fiona remembered her arm buckling, unable to support her any longer, and toppling to the floor. But instead of hitting the smooth cobblestone of the storeroom, her shoulder sank into sand. She curled up in a tight ball as violent shivers wracked her body and concentrated on taking the next breath.

"It's you," she heard Linus say and felt him sit down beside her. His fingers gently combed her hair back from her face and wiped away her tears. "Of course it's you. Only you would do this."

"Are you real?" she whispered.

He nodded. "Yeah."

She let out a sob as she pushed herself up far enough to be able to wrap her arms around him and finally let herself cry. His hands were hesitant against her back, but eventually he settled holding her in a loose hug. "I want to go home." She said. "But I don't know where that is. I keep leaving pieces of myself behind and now there's nothing left. Tell me it's over so I can stop."

"It's over. You can stop." Fee lifted her head to stare at him, to see if somewhere in his carefully blank expression that he may be bullshitting her. He looked back at her with soft dark eyes and a small smile. "And I can tell you exactly who you are. You're the girl that saved a god."

"This is the worst joke, Linus," she croaked and shoved at his shoulder. "The _worst_."

"I'm not joking. Look," he said solemnly and pointed to a tree surrounded by a halo of gold stars. "The Tree of Life, and its guardian Nithogg. Life goes on." Beyond the tree, a dark shadow roiled against the sky and sank down into the dark horizon.

"What was that?" she nodded to where the shadow disappeared.

"The Void." He lifted his shoulder in a small shrug. "Me."

She stared at him again. She wanted to ask how that could be him when he was already sitting there with her, but she had a funny feeling the answer would be another shrug and something like, "God," in a _well, duh_ tone.

"I fixed it?" she asked instead.

"I fixed it. You fixed me." He smiled again, this time shy and bright. She could count the number of times on one hand she'd seen him smile like this. "Thank you, by the way."

Fee could cry all over again. "Okay. What's next?"

"Life goes on." He looked a little confused. "Death counts his numbers. Night mourns. I keep the Void in check and save the lost."

"No, I mean, what's next for me? I can't stay here, wherever here is." She finally looked at their surrounds. Aside from the Tree of Life, there was nothing but desert in all directions. A single moon hung low overhead in the midnight sky, the rest was empty. There were no stars.

"This is No Man's Land. And why not? Here's not so bad." Linus lifted his chin toward a building that hadn't been there a second ago. "There's a mall. All the movies you'll never see are showing. There's libraries of books never written. Music that's never been played. And that's just the things I remember." His smile turned sad. "I think I've forgotten more than I will ever remember. But that just makes rediscovering things such a surprise. It might be nice to do that."

"I don't belong here." She rubbed her face with her hands. By the time she looked up again, the mall had disappeared and they were alone again. "And even if I did, what would I survive on? All the pizza that's never been eaten? Go live in the houses that have never been built?"

"There's a mall?" His expression fell and he sighed heavily. "You really want to go home?"

"I do." She nodded.

"You could have anything, be anything, and all you want is to go home?" He started to look disappointed.

"Yeah. I want to go home. I want to be back wherever it is that I belong and not feel so empty. I want to be me again. I don't want to be the reflection."

He chewed on his lip again. "So that's it. We go our separate ways again."

"What are you talking about?" It was her turn to be confused.

"You might not belong here, but I do. This is where I've always been. I won't be going with you."

She pushed at his shoulder. "Why not? This is the second stupidest thing I have ever heard. The part where you're a god and can probably do whatever the hell you want aside, home includes you and you're an idiot if you think otherwise. I didn't travel through all these lives just to save the universe, I did it to help someone I care about."

Linus blinked at her, wide eyed and bewildered. "Wow."

"That wasn't a declaration the undying love of the ages, just so we're clear."

"No, I know. But still, _wow_." His cheeks started to flush. "Nobody's ever done anything like this for me. Ever. I can understand it for other people, but not _me_. I'm not other people. I don't need help."

"Except for when you do." Fiona said with a half-hearted smile.

"Yeah." His blush darkened. "Except for then."

"So come back with me?"

He tapped the end of her nose with one finger. "Okay." Like a switch being flipped, he instantly sobered. "This is going to hurt. But you're going to get what you want." He tucked her hair behind her ear and pulled her back in for a hug. It wasn't so bad at first and was about to say as much, but then a thick, heavy, oil-slicked sensation spread over her skin and the air was choked with burning ash. Linus felt spongy and boneless in her arms as he dragged her down into the dark.

*

  
Fee was floating again, but this time she couldn't breathe at all. She thrashed against the water with no idea which way was up. A hand gripped her arm and pulled. Her lungs were burning when she broke through the surface and gasped for air. Linus held her hand as he climbed up onto the longboat and helped her to relative safety. The boat was on fire and so was the rest of the forest around them. A dragon dove right for them, its throat aglow and ready to bellow flames.

"No." Linus said and glared up at the beast. At the last possible moment, it veered to the side and swooped low enough to skim the water. The boat tilted and Fee slid down the deck back toward the water. She tried to let go so that she didn't drag Linus down with her, but he held tight. She just managed to take a deep breath before they were both plunged back into the sea.

*

  
A gentle shake on her shoulder roused her from sleep. A tired looking nurse smiled. "He's awake and asking for you." For a moment, Fee had no idea what she was talking about. She was in the hospital. She'd been asleep on the plastic chairs while Linus was in surgery. Her heart skipped a beat.

She groggily stumbled back into room 305 and found Linus propped up on pillows, looking pale and wan and with more bandages on his head. He smiled weakly at her. "Still with me?"

"I never left." She replied and squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.

*

  
The sun had set, Fiona could feel it. The sky was still grey in the west and the last vestiges of light slanted through the blinds, but it no longer made her eyes sting when she first woke up. She was getting the hang of being undead. Beside her, Titus stirred in his sleep and hugged the pillow. The bite on his neck had healed well into a shiny pink scar. She had to resist the urge to lean over and lick it. It made her teeth tingle and her mouth water at the thought of breaking through that new skin and tasting him again.

She felt fingers on her shoulder, guiding her to roll over. Linus blinked at her in the gloom. "Recreational chewing on Titus only, remember?"

"He never objects." She shrugged and reached behind her to touch Titus' hip, her fingers pressing the bruised bite she had left there.

"He's not just food, remember that." Linus propped himself up against the wall and flexed his fingers as he offered her his wrist. "Same with me for that matter."

"You want me to be gentle?" Her fangs slid out and she licked the skin near his thumb.

He smiled. "Never." He drew in a sharp breath as she bit down.

*

  
Fiona smacked her forehead on the table as she sat up. "Ow."

"Sorry," Raquel said, but didn't look apologetic in the least as she righted the picture of her and Candy in its ridiculous sparkly unicorn frame. "How's it going?"

"The network ought to be up and running by the time I stop seeing stars." Fee rubbed her head and hissed. "One day, I am going to stop hitting my head around you."

"Today is not that day." Raquel sat down on the floor beside her. "However, today is the day we have a record label up and running. Go us." She held up one small hand and curled her fingers into a fist. Fee bumped knuckles with her and felt pretty good with herself. Right up to the point when Raquel reached out and stuck her fingers in the lump on her head. "Sorry, Fee."

*

  
Fiona woke up on the bus. Her head felt like it was sliding apart and she had a fuzzy carpet feeling in her mouth. "Nnngh, never drinking Russell's moonshine again," she vowed and winced at how wrecked her voice sounded.

"If you don't drink it, how will he know if he gets it right?" Linus replied as he wandered into the lounge with two cups of coffee in his hands.

"If one of those isn't for me, I'll..." She had no idea what she would do.

He held one of the mugs out to her. "It's for you."

She took it and breathed in the fumes to help chase away the sand inside her skull. "You're looking better."

"I am." He said with a small smile and sat down beside her. "My head still hurts."

"You should think about that the next time you decide to go wandering off to remember the days of Valhalla, or whatever it is you do." Fee sagged beside him and tangled her feet up with his. "Better still, don't do that again. It scared the shit out of everyone when you collapsed."

"Sorry." He looked intently at his mug. "But I came back."

"For a little while there, I didn't think you would." She blew on her coffee before taking a hesitant sip. It was still too hot, but she could live with the scorched tongue in favour of becoming vaguely more human.

Linus looked over at her. "Why?"

"It's the end of the world. Or almost. There's got to be more interesting things going on around here other than babysitting a bunch of very confused musicians." She said and shrugged. "At the very least, there's other bands you might be interested in. Don't think I haven't noticed that look you get when you're watching Titus and Oliver. Seth and Donna aside, the rest of us must be so ordinary to you."

"Ordinary is not a synonym for boring." He said and bumped his knee against hers. "Case in point: you."

"Me?" She nearly choked on her coffee.

"I miss you." His usual tone and expression softened a little. "I should have said that to you years ago, but it's still true. I miss you. I miss this."

"The zombies and mind-numbing horror?" Fee was aware that she was being deliberately obtuse, but she could hardly believe what she was hearing.

"That too. But _this_." He lifted his coffee mug in a toast to the lounge area. "All we're missing is pizza and some John Carpenter movies. Maybe some Romero, like _The Crazies_. That right there is a pretty good time."

"You don't need me around to do that. You know where the DVDs are." She said with a snort.

"I'm trying to tell you that I enjoy your company, Fee. It's been a few eons since I've been around someone who didn't want something from me, or vice-versa," he said and chewed on his lip. "I'm really bad at this."

"You are." She reached over and threaded her fingers between his. "But so am I. We can always be bad at this together."

Linus smiled, shy but bright. "I'd like that."

"We'll put on a movie and I'll tell you all about the things you missed." She started to untangle her legs from his. Her movies were on the other bus and they both agreed that it was probably easier to move over there anyway. Linus figured he ought to make an appearance to show the rest of the band – and the camp – that he wasn't dead. It was a good idea in theory, but fell to pieces almost as soon as they set foot outside. It was later than she had anticipated and half the other bands were in the picnic area for a pizza party. Linus got sidelined by one of the Daves for secret manager business and Candy grabbed Fee with more dire predictions for the future. It wasn't enough to have a bus with a mural depicting the End Times with explosions and tentacles, Candy had started to fill a notebook with drawings of her visions and this one showed a tiny figure with massive wings covered in eyes. "It's coming," she said as she massaged her temples. "Soon."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * ['Til Forever Ends (cover art)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/130411) by [Trishkafibble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trishkafibble/pseuds/Trishkafibble)




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